Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Daveed Diggs on the Need for Artistic Expression | From Who's With Me? with W. Kamau Bell

Transcript

Daveed Diggs on the Need for Artistic Expression | From Who's With Me? with W. Kamau Bell · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Hey everybody, it's me W camout Bell. I'm dropping into
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: your feed today to bring your preview of my new podcast,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Who's with Me Now. If you know me in my work,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I like to have conversations, but not just regular conversations.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I like to have conversations that focus on the big talk,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: the big things. So I'm talking to some people, reached
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: out to friends of mine, people I admire, to ask
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: them things that I really want to know, and also
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: to give them their flowers. I hope you enjoy it,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: and if you do, find Who's with Me with W
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: cam al Bell wherever you listen to your podcasts. Push
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: can Plus subscribers can hear each episode ad free. Sign
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: up on the Who's with Me with W kmal Bell
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: show page on Apple or at pushkin dot Fm, slash plus.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Hey everybody, it's me W Cabell. Welcome to episode five
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: of Who's With Me? And also, if you're on YouTube
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: like subscribe, hit that hype button. I hear that hype
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: button is important. I hypet things now too, so hit
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• 1:15
  Speaker 2: just subscribe, and you know, hit the share button. Share
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: with a friend everybody, please share this podcast with your friends.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: That's how we build this It's really going well right now.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I'm really excited about it, but we got to share
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: it with the friends. Please share it with your friends.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Today the guest is David Diggs. Super excited to have
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: him on. The conversation was great. You may know David
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: from the most recent season of The Boys. You may
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: know him as one of the stars of the musical
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Hamilton on Broadway. You might know him from his rap
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: group clipping he's a rapper, or you may know him
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: from just Lots of Stuff snow Piercer. The dude works hard.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: We talk about working hard and the importance of being
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: with your family. We also talk about the importance of
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: men nurturing their friendships with their men friends. Famously, he's
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: friends with Rafael Cassol. They met each other in high school.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Raefael is also a good person who is too good
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: looking to be such a good person. I don't know
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: how they do it. And also they're both famously from
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: the East Bay of Northern California, Oakland and Berkeley and
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: a little bit Albany. Weirdly, but anyway, we talked about
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: all that enjoy the interview when we get there. First,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: I have a confession to make. I w Cambell used
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: to be a fan of the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: I know, I know, I know, it's not I was
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: bit by the martial arts bug early as a young person.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: I grew up in the era of Bruce Lee movies
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: being on television and renting them from the video store,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: and so I did martial arts as a kid, also
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: as a teenager. So I love martial arts and I
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: found my pathway into the UFC through martial arts. Originally,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: when the UFC came out in the nineties, I didn't
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: like it because their whole marketing thing was like somebody
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: might die, and I was like, I don't really want
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: to see that. But then when Dana White took it over,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: he made an effort to make it more mainstream, bringing
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: more rules in and weight classes, and that was all great,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: and so I was there for the prime era of
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: the UFC.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Rowsy Connor McGregor.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: My favorite UFC fighter of all time Amna Nunez, who
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: was the first champion who was also openly gay in
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: any combat sport. So yeah, shout out to Aman in
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: nunas the Lionus. And then at some point I started
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: to just struggle with my UFC fandom. I think it
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: happened around COVID because Dana White, who was clearly, you know,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: not a guy that I'd want to like hang out
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: with or invite to my house, just through the struggles
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: of COVID he did with a lot of people on
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: the right did. They went super maga and super trumpy
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: and super anti the left, even though COVID happened when
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: his friend Donald Trump was president. So I don't know
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: what had to do with the left, but all the
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: COVID restrictions really put a b in Dana's bonnet, and
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: so he's gone. He went super like maga. Not just Republican,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: but maga. He's also spoken in all three of Trump's
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Republican national conventions and calls Trump a friend, and you
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: know that's not a good sign. And so I just
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: started to like feel like, I don't know if I
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: can support this sport with my dollars anymore, and I
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: started to buy less and less fights. And then a
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: couple of years ago, on New Year's Eve, he famously
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: was in a fight with his wife that was captured
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: on video. They were in a nightclub somewhere and she
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: slapped him and he slapped it right back, and I
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, I'm out, And I knew I was
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: right to be out because a lot of UFC fans
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: were saying she hit him first. Yeah, that's that's how
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: uh chivalry, being a gentleman works.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: My wife hit me. She had it coming.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, you guys are awful, and you're probably gonna be
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: awful in the comments if you find this clip. And
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: I had been one of the evangelists of the sport,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: one of the few left wing evangelists. Max's also a
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: fan of a guy named Luke Thomas who's also a
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: more left wing evangelist of the UFC. He's an MMA
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: journalist and also a regular journalist. He's in my book
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Who Is Government? Luke's a great guy. Follow his work
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: on YouTube. Luke Thomas gets a political also Morning Combat,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: which is a UFC show or his MMA show.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: So I was like one of the few left wing
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: UFC people. I knew, fans I knew, and I just like,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: I can't do it anymore.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I can't.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: I can't do it. And I understand that athletes don't
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: always have your politics. That's fine, but they can't be
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: anti my humanity or what I think is good in
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: the world. They can't do that. Like recently some of
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: the San Francisco giants on Pride Day war hats with
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Bible versus that were somehow saying we're not with Pride Day.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: So it's like, all right, well, I can't sit for
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: a game of that. I get that we don't have
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: to think the same way, but I can't have you
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: poke in a stick in my face while I'm trying
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: to enjoy your sport. So I just left it behind.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: But Dana White did not care. He didn't care. He
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: figured out a way to keep the sport going. But
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: I think day White knew he was losing some left
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: wing fans. So in his new media deal, he didn't
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: do a pay per view thing, because pay per view
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: you do exactly who wants your sport. He signed with
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Paramount Plus, which is also the Ellisons, and so you
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: don't have to pay for individual fights now they just
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: come if you pay for Paramount Plus. So I think
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: it's a way of hacking around on the idea of like, oh,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I don't have to get you to pay for anymore.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: You'll just watch it because it's on your app. I
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: did not watch it. And we all have been talking
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: about the UFC recently because of the event that just
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: happened over the past weekend, the UFC Freedom two fifty
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Raw Rah Kid RockA USA event that happened on the
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: lawn of the White House that was supposed to be
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: to celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth Birthday of America
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: but somehow ended up being moved to Donald Trump's birthday.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: And that event happened over the weekend, and if you
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: read the reviews of it as a UFC event, people
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: say it was a good UFC event, But if you
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: read the reviews of it as a cultural event, it
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: is pointing to everything wrong in America right now. In particular,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: one moment, a fighter named Josh Hokitt won his fight
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: against Things fought. Derek lewis a black guy, which is
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: not important, but there's not that many black guys in
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: the UFC, so I mentioned it, so Josh Hokit, who
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: is not a black guy, at the end of his
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: fight when he was in the ring doing his winter speech,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: and Josh Hogen is sort of a he's doing like
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: a bad version of Randy Mochellman Savage from the WWE.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: It's like a TMU Randy Mochellman Savage. Uh. He's given
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: his speech and somebody he sort of runs out of
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: steam and clearly just wants to get out of there.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: And so he turns to Joe Rogan who's interviewing him,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: and Joe was dressed like I think the way I
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: could describe Joe, he was dressed like a like the
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: junior used car salesman who needs to talk to the
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: manager to decide if you're gonna get your undercoding. He
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: was dressed like a like a majer d at a restaurant.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: That's not good anymore. So Josh Hog turns to Joe
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Rogan and says, uh, Michelle Obaum was a man right America,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: And the crowd cheers. And I heard this because I
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: was paying attention to the fights through Luke Thomas's watch
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: along and just through following it online. And I saw that.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: I was like what And I pulled it up and
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: found the clip and that's what.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: The guy did.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: And to me, any any fin layer of belief that
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: this was about, that this event was about that was
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: nonpartisan and non political. Dana White kept saying it was
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: non political, it was just the way to celebrate America.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Even though Dana White is political and everything he does,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: he somehow seems to think he's not political. But at
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: the same time he's spoken at all three Republican national conventions.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: He literally will say, I'm not into politics, but you
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: spoke at three Republican national conventions. So any hint that
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: this was not a toxic environment strewn with maga politics
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: went away. When Josh Hogad said the thing about Michelle
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Obama that I don't want to repeat again. It sort
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: of ties into last week why I really am anti
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: and have to be loudly anti transphobia, because transphobia doesn't
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: just hurt trans people, it hurts women overall, because anybody
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: who's transphobic is going to use that as an attack
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: on a woman they don't like. And Michelle Obama, who's
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: just somewhere living her best life, having conversations on her
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: podcast with her brother, just doing her own thing and
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: has not ever tried to run for politics and has
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: not been involved in politics since Obama left office, is
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: being called a man on the lawn of the house
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: she used to live in, and Joe Rogan just sat
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: there and laughed, which really made me just feel like,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: fuck you, Joe Rogan. The Kevin Heart Roast the news
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: story that will never end. Recently, Joe Rogan said, any
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: comedian who criticized any comedian who made jokes with the
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Kevin Heart Roast, that comedian is a trader to comedy.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: And trader is such a funny word because traders normally
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: use as the word you use when you're a trader
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: to your country. And I would say, Joe Rogan, I'm
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: fining to be a trader to comedy. Are you fining
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: to be a trader to your country? Because that's what
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: you're doing right now by glad handling Trump everywhere you
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: go and letting this man slowly become the fascist of
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: his dreams. You, Joe Rogan, are being a trader to
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: your country. I'll take trader to comedy. Can you handle
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: trader to your country? All right, let's breathe, let's relax.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: We got to clear the air.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: I gotta relax because my guest doesn't need all this
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: bad ugliness in the air, because he is the amazing,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: the awesome, the incredible to be Biggs.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Right now we're officially started.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: There we go.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: So thank you for doing my podcast, Thank you for
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: having It's You're among the first conversations I've had for
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: this podcast. So I when I was like, who can
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I reach out to? I want to come down to
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: LA and do some episodes, and you were high on
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: my list. And I was also like, who knows where
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: that dude is in the world. You can be like
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: I figured you'd say yes, but also was like he
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: could be anywhere.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, that's true.
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: But I'm always trying to be home, so like it's
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: good if you're doing so of the NLA. It's a
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: really like good choice to try and hit me, like
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: get me to do something here because I'm trying to
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: be here.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, I start every episode of by giving people their flowers.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: I feel like in the hectic world that we're in
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: and the thing's going on and I'm and I'm booking
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: people who I really admire and want to talked to
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: for an hour, so it's not like it's not yet
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: just like, well I got to book you because we
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: got a slot, so it really important to me to
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: like book people, and so certainly. I've appreciate how like
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: how you have come into my life. Like when I
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: it was when I moved back to the Bay Area
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: with my wife and Melissa, who you know, was pregnant
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: with our second kid, our second daughter. I was between jobs,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: so I didn't really know what was happening when things
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: were going on, and that I was working on the
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: United Shades, and I was really like had decided, we
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: decided to make our life in the East Bay. At
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: that point, we were living in Berkeley, but we always
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: wanted to get to Oakland. But we decided we're not
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: going to live in LA or New York. We're going
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: to be here. And when you and Rafa reached out
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: about blind spotting, I remember getting the call like they
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: got these guys want you to do this thing.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I was like, okay, cool, and then they're like, they
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: want to talk to you on the phone. Do you
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: remember this. You guys were like, we want to talk to.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: You on the I remember talking to you on the phone.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: It was like a meet. They were like, they want
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: to talk to you on the phone, was what it
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: was said to me. I was like, okay.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Before I moderated and you both just sort of let
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: me know that, no, we know who you are, which
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: I appreciated.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: It was such a that everything associated with that film
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: was like a wild experience for us because we had
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: yet to work in Hollywood at all, really, so we
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: didn't know how these things actually work. But it was
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: you know, we kept being like, we want everybody to
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: know how intentional this is for us, you know, like
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: this is not a part of this that's like, yeah,
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: that would be cool. It was like, no, this is
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: who we want to do this and you were like,
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: what it would be awesome if Kamal did this, Like
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: this would be amazing.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: And for me, I was still in this spot. I
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: mean I still in this spot, but I was in
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: the spot of like, I know, I'm working hard, I'm
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: doing doing things, but I don't know if you know
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: who's seeing it, or who's aware of it, or who
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: is who or who even or maybe people see it
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: but don't like it, you know what I mean. I
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: sort of put my head down and like I'm going
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: to do the work. Especially then, so the fact that
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: I think you all told me that you'd seen me
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: at the punch line back in the day, Yeah, which
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I was when it's the club that I came up
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: at in San Francisco. So I just appreciate you too,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: and you how intentional you all are about your life
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: and your work and connecting those things, and how when
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: I when I look at you, like I said when
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: I reached out for you the podcast, like this dude,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: I just saw him on stage in Berkeley with clipping like,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: you know, wrapping his ass off madness. Yeah, I had
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: opened my eagle on yesterday.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, So I just
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: I just saw you.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Then I'm watching you on my phone in a in
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: the new clip from the Boys, like there's a very
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: proof like there he is, yeah yeah yeah. And then
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: and then as I sit down today, I'm like, oh,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: another movie's coming out, Yeah yeah, a Magic Hour.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: Magic Hour Yeah yeah, which I'm I'm that's one of
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: those ones, like amazing that it's gonna have a theatrical release,
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: very independent, yeah, very yeah.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: So I'm so excited about it.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Looking at the clip, looks like the movie is like,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: is this the movie that me and my wife can
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: go to or should we see separately of those intense
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: marriage movies where you're like.
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, I think it's a can though. It's
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: very pro marriage. Okay, it's very pro forgiveness. It's very Yeah.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: I remember I went and saw Eternal Sunshine of the
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: spotless uh spotless mind with my girlfriend at the time,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: and I watched someone go I think we got to
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: break up.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I don't get this from you. I'm not I don't
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: feel this.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Where's the support, I'm not so.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: I just want to be careful about those things. But
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: I just see you like busting your ass all the time.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I appreciate that. I mean, yes, sort of.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: I mean we all waste time behind the scenes, and
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: we all we all like have days we can't get
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: out of bed. I'm not saying that you no, no, no, no,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: but I just but I just want to be clear,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: like and again to take these flowers.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Yes, I'm not accepting. I'm trying to be and you
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: can you can elaborate.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: But I do see like sometimes there's people like I
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: look at your I get he's he's.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Good at a lot of things. Just take it.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: He's good a lot of things. But he doesn't have
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: to do all these things. He doesn't need to be
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: here in Berkeley, wrapping his ass off with clipping and
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: he could be at home, you know what I mean,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: you know, he could be he you know, I see
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: you like I just see you in being in a
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: lot of spaces and and you do all of those spaces.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: And I really appreciate like it models like intentional work ethic,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: but also the kind of like approach to this business
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: that is like on some level we're all just like
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: some of us are just plumbers making the donuts, you
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: know what I mean, not that plumbers should make donuts,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: but you know what I mean, the idea of like
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: we're just doing the work that's in front of us.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: It's crazy, but yeah, you know, yeah, no, I agree.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: I mean to a certain degree, I do have to
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: do all of those things because I don't know how
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: to function otherwise, you know, like I don't ye the
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: Bay Arean is of it all is that is that
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: thing where we just do things. We have to make things,
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: and a lot of the way the business side of
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: this works is you end up waiting to make things.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: You end up like waiting for permission to make things.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: And I don't know how to feel like a person
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: when I'm doing that. At the same time, like and
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: this is you know, I admire you a lot in
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: this too, because like I'm trying. I'm new to this
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: dad business and I'm like always trying to be with him,
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: so anything that takes me away from him, I am
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: like I'm like very nervous about and I'm always trying
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: to minimize and like how quickly can I get in
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: and get out? But I still like need to do it.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: You know, the amount of like serious discussions me and
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: my wife Abby I have had to have about like
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: I know this doesn't bring in any money and I
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: know like where she's never getting out. It's like me
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: apologizing beforehand, like I'm so sorry, but I just I
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: have to go do this rap show.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, and you know, and it's a real rap show.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: It's not like it doesn't there's nothing about clipping that
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: feels like it's like a hobby. It feels like this
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: is and you know, I saw the tiny desk and
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: I've and listened to the music and it's like there's
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: in an alternate timeline, this is just who you are.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Like you're just that guy.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I still kind of think of myself as
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: that guy. I don't know, like, yeah, I'm just like
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: I in the you know, around twenty two thousand and
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: nine or something eight something like that, Like I made
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: a very conscious decision to start identifying as a rapper,
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: you know, because I was like, I otherwise, how can
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: I say that I am? You know, like it was
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: the thing I had been doing for longer than anything else.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: I wasn't making any money from anywhere at the time,
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: so it was just like, well, what's the thing that
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: And I had.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: To be like, well, what do I love if I
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: you know, what is what is the thing? I want?
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: To be honest, I want to make these rap songs.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: I want to go all over the world playing raps.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: I'm a rapper. I was saying that in public, which
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: is a crazy thing for like a young black men
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: to just especially like without a deal and with no
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: like evidence that that's working. But just like you know,
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: show it up in my ninety seven Honda Civic being like, yeah,
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: I'm a rapper.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: I'm a crazy thing to do.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: But I so anyway, that was such a choice that
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: it's a thing that I still I still very much
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: identify as.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and and I would imagine, like you said in
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: the bay, there's just a let's make some stuff yeah,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: and sort of let's make some stuff without almost without
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: regards often to profit or or market.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Uh whether the market needs this thing.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: They know, because we don't know how, right, like who
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: there's no industry there, which is it's a wild place
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: in hindsight to be such a robust like arts forward
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: place where there isn't an industry behind it. So all
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: of us are just making it and like figure and
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: making the time to make it and figuring out how
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: to work other jobs and make it. And that's just
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: what you do because like art is necessary and we
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: make art and so yeah that yeah, so that that's
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: just part of the thing. And I have so I
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: was just thinking about this today, like I have a
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: lot of I have hired people and also keep other
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: people around me who are concerned with product right because
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: I don't even know how.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Oh you need people who are like that's a good unit.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: We can sell that.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean not in a cynical way, but
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: in like a this is a capitalistic society we live in.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: You have made a good unit that we can this
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: is a good thing we can do.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, or even you know, even in films like this,
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: I am such a process guy that I don't you know,
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: if I see a thing that's like, this is a
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: really interesting script I would like to do.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: That's all I need to want to do it.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: And other people can advise me like that's gonna tank,
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: that's not or this is whatever. Ultimately I can decide
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: to do it, even like while shooting, somebody to tell
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: me that's what directors are for. I'm so interested in
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: the process. I'll do a thousand takes of a scene.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: I don't care.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: You got to tell me when it's done. I'm going
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: to keep trying something new. I'm having a great time here,
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: you know, So like you tell me when you got it,
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: because I don't know. I'm just out here.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I'm just out here doing it.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: I'm just out here.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: You're out here, like do the thing and let the
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: director go, oh there it was great. I'm glad to
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: know that where it was.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I put a lot of trust in my
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: collaborators in that way. Like my you know, if when
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: I know what my role on a on a particular
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: project is, my role here is as actor.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Great, That's what I'm doing. I have to learn the
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: lines and say the lines.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: Those are my parameters and like I'm gonna do as
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: much as I can within that is everybody else. You
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: tell me when I'm lit, you tell me if my
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: hair is out of place, you tell I'm not gonna
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: look at the screen.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: I don't care.
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: He's like, my job is to be honest, try to
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: find these moments of honesty. Like that's it, and I'll
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: as many chances as you want to give me to
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: do that. Cool if you're losing light and we got
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: to move on, cool, you know, Like that's what it is.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: So I don't know if it's intentional, but I mean
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: it's sort of connected to like you just want to
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: work and do things, but you're just a person who
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: also it has no problem appearing and like you said,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: a small independent film on stage doing you know, how
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: would you declibe clipping is where's their role?
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: And rap and hip hop? What is the you know?
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: I talked to Mike Eglist day.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: He was like, I called myself art raps isn't working
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: more so, I was like, I say indie rap because
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: it sort of describes the entire thing.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe we'll just put ourselves there. I don't We've
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: always just called ourselves rap music. It was like very
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: intentionally track because when we first came along, it was
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: a lot of a lot of the commentary around us
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: was like like I don't like rap, but I like this,
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: or like this isn't like what rap is like, and
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: we kept so we started being very intentional about this
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: is just rap.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: We're not actually doing anything new.
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: We are taking all of the traditions that we have
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: learned from being lifelong like practitioners and fans of this
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: culture of music and making the thing.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: That we do.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: So so I've always just called I just.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: You're not an anti rap. You post post rap.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: Not post rap, node nothing. Yeah, it's all it's all
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: rap music.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: So but yeah, just to get back to the questions,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: like I see you like this is like what I
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: would define is like like this hardcore rap outfit rap group.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: You're doing independent movies and then but you're also I'm
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: not shocked at all to see you pop up in
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: something big and loud and commercial like The Boys. That
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: doesn't feel like Deviata is supposed to be independent. There's
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: a time when people sort of put those labels on people,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: like you're not supposed to be doing that, you'd Parker posey,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: what are you doing in the movie. And I don't
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: feel like with you that I see you as being like,
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: oh that's I feel like, no, that's perfect for him,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: and I'm happy for him and I can't wait to
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: see what he does in that space.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Oh that's cool, thank you.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: I mean I think that those.
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: That kind of sectioning off is sort of disappearing in
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: some ways, you know. I'm I think we've we as
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: fans as audience, have become so much more aware of
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: the business side of it than we were before and
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: how hard it is to make money doing art. So
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: like I don't know, generally for me, any actor I
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: see in a big thing that it looks like they
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: got paid a lot for Like I'm very.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Happy for man, that guy got insurance. You know, he's
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: got an insurance cover for the whole year.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: And you know, Mike Eagle Song gets a placement in
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: a on a Netflix movie. Hell yeah, like that's yes,
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: I know you didn't get paid enough for that, but
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: like I hope you did, like you know, so yeah,
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: but I do, you know. I mean, the jump off
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: for me was Hamilton and It and it was the
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: most popular thing in a very long time, but it
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: was still for me, it was me and my friends
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: making something dumb, right, So like that it was so
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: the only process I know.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: It's all part of the same as the same process.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: Oh, these people are people I trust, Like, these are
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: artists I enjoy working with. This is an idea that
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: I don't know if it works or not. It's a big,
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: a big thing for me on everything. It's like if
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: I'm the most attractive thing for me is to not
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: know if it's gonna work because I need the experiment
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: of it. I need the excitement of being like, wow,
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: this is a big swing or what could we possibly
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: be doing here, you know, being halfway through and me
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: like this is a failure. You know, I kind of
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: need that juice. So yeah, and so it just but
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: because I think I have benefited in many ways because
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: of that being my sort of entry to the more
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: mainstream world in that for me, it was still that
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: exact same modality of working, but but it became this phenomenon.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah that was just pop art, you know.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean I don't want to spend too
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: much time with that because I know you've talked about
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Hamilton a lot, but I do I don't actually know
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: the origin story of you and lin Manuel coming across
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: each other.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've talked about before.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: But how do you just freestyle of Supreme?
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, just a hip hop collective?
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, so we were rapping like yeah yeah and
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: a yeah and a funny clerical error but.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: And so on. Some bas I told the story before too,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: so you cut it out of the thing. But like, it's.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: Me and Anthony VININCIALI was another founding member Freestyle. I
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: was living in San Francisco. We were both due to
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: a clerical error called the substitute teach the same class
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: in Marine City, and so we show up. It's like
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: a first grade class or something. You have to come
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: up with something new to do with these kids every
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: fifteen minutes. I guess we're both getting paid today, so
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: we're both gonna do this. Yeah, And at some point
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: we just start freestyling with the kid. He's like, do
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: you do you freestyle?
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I do?
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: He was like, great, this is what we're gonna do.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: We're gonna be boxing. We do this, and we did
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: that for half an hour. Really worked out.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: I think his wife's car broken down or something, so
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: I gave him a ride home to San Francisco, and
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: he we started talking and he was like, I'm part
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: of this group freestyle of a pre of my friend Lynn.
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you know him, he's like whatever,
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: he's about to do a show on Broadway called in
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: the Heights. That I have no idea of anything that
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: you're talking about, but whatever. So but it was that's
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: how I know those guys say that we became friends.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: And then I've become more fascinating recently with just the
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: idea of sliding doors and butterfly effect and the idea
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: that like that, doesn't you know that's a that's a yeah,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: your whole life goes a different direction if you maybe
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: like you still an actor, you're still rapping, but you're
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: not necessarily in Hamilton.
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm almost certainly not. I don't know how, you
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: know how I would have met those cats otherwise. And
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: it's yeah, that that is particularly crazy, especially because like
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: if anyone who's been a substitute teachers, not a lot
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: of great opportunities to come.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Out of it, a lot of life changing and after
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: I substitute talk Yeah, yeah, those things and forget I
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: tripped over a billion dollars, and I was like, there's
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: a billion dollars here.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I just thank god I substitute taught today. Yeah.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: No, that's so I want to give you just this is,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: uh how like my Hamilton, how I've seen Hamilton from
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: the outside, because that ends in a very personal way.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Otherwise we wouldn't necessarily talk about it. But like, I'm
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: a person who like I was living in Oakland when
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Hamilton hit, and all I knew about Hamilton was that
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: people in New York Twitter were like raving over Like
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: that was like when Twitter was Twitter, you know, yeah,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: and Twitter was talking about Hamilton.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: And at the time, I didn't know if I was
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: ever gonna see it. My wife's a big Broadway person,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: but we were not in a position to go to
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Broadway and see these things. So I just and then
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: I remember, and then it like then it tours, and
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: then more people start to see it, and then my
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: wife starts to see it, and then it becomes Hamilton
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: and it's everywhere and everybody's talking about it, uh pandemic
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: it airs on Disney Plus and then the Hamilton discourse begins.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: And I sort of had this feeling that because my
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: wife loves Broadway that like, I don't know that Broadways
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: for everybody, Like I think that, like there's a reason
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: why it's in New York and the people who want
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: to see it go see it. I agree, and that
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: like I feel like you can basically discourse every Broadway
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: play because it's just it's just. And I know if
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: it's a Broadway it's just it's it's about there's a
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: lot of suspension of disbelief that happens when you go
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: into a theater, like a Broadway theater, and why is
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: everybody singing at me?
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: You know, why is it? Why are there? Why isn't there?
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: There's why isn't there that?
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: But so the Hamilton discourse starts, which you know, which
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: we don't have to get into, but it's just about
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: like is this thing is? Is this thing the thing
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: that it is? Or is it not the thing that
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: it is? And how why would you do the thing
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: this way? And D D D dad and all these things.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: And I remember seeing that Hamilton discourse and being like
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: at the time, knowing you and be like, man, it's
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: not his play, but he's in the middle of this
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: and sort of feeling like how does it feel to
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: be in the middle of this and sort of like
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: and then everybody and then it feels like that happened,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: you know, we also in the pandemic and we all
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: and then we sort of come back, and then then
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: you all are at the Tonys and it's suddenly like
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: it's okay.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Ten years will do a lot like we're back, we're.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Maybe, and we're celebrating the anniversary.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: My favorite moment of the Tonys is when you you
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: did that jump. I was watching with my daughter and
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: she heard me go.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah. I got text from everybody I know like
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: are you okay? You're okay? I think I might have
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: said my niece.
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: Literally, I don't think I've ever gotten more reach outs
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: like for anything.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: It was just like I watched it several times because
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: I was like, I couldn't pull that off even at
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: my best, my most athletic day of my life, but
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: like that was truly impressed.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: I got separate phone calls before, you know, when we
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: had decided to do that, from both Lynn and Andy
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: the choreographer, both reached out like separately being like, can
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: you jump off a table? I was like, I can't
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: do it. Eight times a week but I could. I
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: could probably get it up one time. There's and that
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: is something about you that that I was respect you.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: There's an athletic, kinetic nature about you as an actor
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: that is just that is also a part of your
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: that seems to be a part of your process.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, man, I you know, I came up running track,
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: and so you know, from when I was nine till
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: post colle ran all the way through college and was
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: trying thought I might be able to make the trials
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: or something after college.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: I was really it was really.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: Important to me and it is still the thing that
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: I miss the most is that that, you know, I
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: think most former athletes have this this thing where you
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: just there was a kind of especially for me, where
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: I'm not I'm you know, I'm a pretty I'm a
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: I'm a relatively shy person. I'm like not, you know,
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: I'm I play a lot of boisterous characters or I'm
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: really that way in my life. It was a way
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: to just quietly walk around and feel superior to and
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: it's like you have this superpower. I can run really
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: fast and I like jump over these I was a hurdler,
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: so like I could also do this kind of like
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: weird timing, technical flexibility thing that like you know, is
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: useless probably in life, especially giving it.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Gets over there quickly.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: But there's a bunch of you know, especially with my
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: life choices, I'm running from the police or anything like that. Like,
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: but but it was just nice you had that thing,
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: and that just like all physical things goes away with age,
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: you know. And so when I get those opportunities to
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: do that on on shows or in TV work or whatever.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm always annoying my stump performer by being
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: like how much you go let me do?
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Like can you can you teach me that thing? Like
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: when we better if I died that thing.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Because then you can you get the camera right.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: So to wrap up the Hamilton discourse, that just about
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: seeing you, Tony's the reason why my daughter.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Was watching it, My my Juno.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: She's now twelve at the time, she's probably ten because
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: she became a kid who fell into Broadway and fell
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: into Hamilton. And then I'd be walking around my house
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: and here a ten year old be like, how goes
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: the best? And it was just like, I don't care
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: what anybody said. This thing is is like I just
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: was like it was just so cool to see it
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: in my life come full circle and come around like
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: now I got this ten year old who is wrapping
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: to herself in her bedroom lyrics from Hamilton.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: It's wild.
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a I never know whether to apologize her
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: parents or to.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: There are creators who need to apologize. Are you involved
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: in Coco Melon because Yeah.
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: What's funny is we were at clipping was asked to
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: contribute to sorry to Cocomelon, and we were all like,
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: absolutely not.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I can don't even understand how that would work.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we made Puppy ver Hanka, so
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: we have some Yeah, but I.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Did, But Cocomelons anyway, that's a whole nother podcast. But
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: like luckily my seven year old who was the Cocomela
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: and fiend is out of it for several years. But
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: it was a I don't have I don't, I don't,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: you don't. You don't need apologize for Hamilton. There's other
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: things I would like to talk to people about, to
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: other other child creators. So for me just to see
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: it as an inroads for this ten year old to
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: like music and to hip hop, yeah, was like I
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: think it's just like becomes like That's that's what you
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: want right there, right.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: You know, it's a pretty wild you know, that's not
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: what we thought we were doing, I don't think, but sure,
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: it's amazing that that's happened. Well, the thing that it
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: did is just the thing that Lynn is, which is
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: like a person who exists at the intersection of exactly
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: those things that there are, a history buff who is
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: as knowledgeable about Broadway as he is about rap music
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: and and so that it's like this show is just
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: like the intersection of the things he loves. And that's
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: he's a pretty like unique, fascinating person. But he's so
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: kind of his you see this when you see him,
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: when you see him speak publicly or whatever. His gift
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: is that he lets everybody into its very and that
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: that was it there. These are actually sort of three
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: spheres that always feel incredibly gate kept right, and he
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: was just like.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: Or or the everybody could just walk in.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I just wanted to give you my
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: this is my my Hamilton, the arc of my Hamilton
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: relationship based on my twelve year old who's very excited
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: I'm talking to you. The other thing that I when
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: I think about you is just public displays of men
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: in community. Men who are friends is such a cool thing,
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: like dudes who have each other's backs all the time
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: and don't so you and Rafa is like this as
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: this sort of like one of the most exactly one
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: of the most adorable things being Kelly Rafferty, who was
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: who worked with me for years when we discovered the
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Calvin and Hobbes videos, you guys did. I mean, it's
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: just like it's like they're so sweet and so sacrid
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: and so underrated. Like I feel like I just want
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: if anything can happen on this podcast, I need people
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: to go watch those videos.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but they're not too many because I'll just get
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: taken out.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: I don't think the calviny, I don't think he's that
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: worried about it. Yeah, I'm sure, yeah, but anyway, I
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: don't want to I don't want to get him. But anyway,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: just talk about being uh that this is you know,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: we all have this, many of us be friends with
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: somebody in high school, like we're going to be friends
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: forever or we're gonna do things forever, and then you know,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: things don't happen that way. Talk about being friends for
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: a long time, publicly professionally and continually.
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, man, I mean Rafa so we you know, we
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: actually we knew each other and high school, but we
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: uh we actually didn't start really hanging out very much.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: So I was a little bit older than he was
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: until I got back from college. So it's like two
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: thousand and four, and uh, one of my best friends
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: his little brothers the same classes as Rafael and were
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: they were very good friends.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: Raphael at whatever he was at the time, eighteen years old,
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: nineteen years old, was already running a recording studio in
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: North Oakland, and and my friend.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: Justin was like, you gotta go, you should go. You
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: guys got you know, you guys go ahead.
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: So we got like set up on a rapper play
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: date basically and that and that was it. Like we
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: stayed up till four in the morning that first night.
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: I was there making a song and we got in
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: the car and we listened to the song because that's
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: as is the custom. And then uh, then I was
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: there pretty much every night. I have probably spoken to
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: him almost every day since then, Eida, But it was
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: it's just yeah, it's crazy when you I think, especially
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: at that age early twenties, you know, when you're really
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: trying to figure it out. And if you're an artist
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: and you find someone you click with artistically, that's incredibly valuable.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: That person also becomes somebody who.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: You trust, who you're you're making mistakes together and growing
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: up together, and you know, has your back and has
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: seeing you at your worst and is still there and
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: get forces you to celebrate your wins. Like Rafa is
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: so good with that for me, because I'm not a
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: celebration type and he, for my whole life, has always
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: been like try to eat.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Me flowers and you're like, I know, yeah, yeah.
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: But he's he's yeah, he has always been the one
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: who's like, we gotta let's acknowledge it. Who knows how
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: many of these we get, you know, so he's he's
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: one of those.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: And so it's.
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: It's interesting, we're, uh, we're writing another film together right now,
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: and it is kind of about the how that kind
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: of a friendship ages and what happens, you know, when.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: Kids get them all on the study, you know, like
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: just yeah, what you know we made?
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: Blind Spotting is essentially about like a you know, young man,
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: late twenties, right, that kind of male friendship, and now
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: what's what's a forties male friendship? Like, like you know,
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: and what are those changes and how do you know,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: how do those things grow together?
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: But it is.
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: I think to me, what's interesting about it is it's
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: both absolutely effortless and also incredibly intentional.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, when you're in your forties. I don't
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: know if this is true for women. As a man,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: you have to be intentional to stay friends with your men,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: friends anybody, Yeah, because it just sort of, yeah, are
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: with your friends because it can just easy because you
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: get so caught up in whatever your life is.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they like I don't even talk to that dude anymore.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, when your life just
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: stopped involving friends like as a necessary part of life,
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: it kind of does.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: Uh, it's some ways. So yeah, it has to be intentional.
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: But I mean even all of our you know, starting
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: to when we were working together when when blind spoting happened,
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: and it happened after Hamilton and so there was like
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: for two people actually honestly in the bay when we
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: were making rap songs, like Rafa was kind of the
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: famous one, so he had the deaf poetry thing going. Honestly,
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: he had like a huge YouTube following. He was the
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: one who was able to book shows out of town
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: and he would always bring us a lot. Was always like,
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: you know, so he was the one opening door so
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: everybody could run through. And then this this thing happened.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: Now like the sort of balance had shifted the other way.
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: People knew my name, wanted to talk to me, and
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: like navigating those kinds of things. And then now you're
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: adding agents and managers and stuff on top of that,
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: who like don't understand the history of it and who
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: you know? There are so many hard conversations that had
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: to be had.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Well like I know you suggest Draffa, but who else
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: should we look at?
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like literally nobody, but also know, hard conversations them
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: hard conversations with each other about you know, we've we've
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: had to we've developed a pretty good muscle now for
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: on projects that we're working on together, like sitting down
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: really before we even get into it and being like,
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: what is important to you about this and what's important
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: to me about this, and let's get really clear on that.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: What are non negotiables so that when all the bullshit
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: starts happening, it's going to happen like we can. We
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: can know that, like we are satisfying these things and
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: we get we get that really clear.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Before like what do we both want out of this? Yeah?
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Is that when the when all the crazy, when all
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: the show is nonsense happens, we can remember, well, I
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: just need this and you need.
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: That, right because you know, when you start, especially with us,
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: when you start talking about like who wrote what or
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: whose idea.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: Is, it's like, not what are you talking about? Like
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: that's not how it works.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: It's like Lennon McCartney, we were both there talking about it.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: We sit down and we eat food, and then like
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: you know, a year later there's a thing. But it's
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: so yeah, we've had to realize that, and this word
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: the Hollywood business is very much about dividing those things
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: up and being like credit, the credit is what you need,
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: and so we tend to decide early on, like what's
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: the credit you need from this?
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: Bro?
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: Like what's the what do we say? Obviously it doesn't matter,
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: like the work doesn't matter. We're going to do what
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: we do. What what what do you need.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Out of this?
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: Or what do I need out of this? Okay, let's
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: do that let's make that happen. Let's send the teams
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: off to accomplish that.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: That's the part about it that is so remarkable to
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: me because once the as you know, I mean, you know,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: being a person who's also a rapper, the money has
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: broken up a lot of friends in a wrapper, It's
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: broken up a lot of crews, like a lot of
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: boys falling apart over money.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: That's true. Ours, maybe ours didn't come from rap.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: But just I would imagine that there's probably it's got
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: to be certain times where you have to sort of
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: go stop, let's talk about this, because the would you
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: want to prioritize the friendship.
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, oh absolutely.
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: It turns out that these yeah, having relationships for that long,
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: you have to talk things out. Yeah, stuff does get weird,
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: you know, and stuff and time passes and you don't know.
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: You go from when you're young and you're just hanging
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: out in studios or whatever. You spend all you know,
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: most of your free time is together, so you don't
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: actually have to have those check ins.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: I just saw you and I'll see you again.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: And you're and you're also now if you two are working,
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: there's not a sense of like We'll just do this
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: until four in the morning, because I got a kid.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: Nothing until four in the morning. She's up at six.
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: I'm like yeah, but yeah, and we work. You know,
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: he's off shooting a TV show right now. So also,
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: like geographically, we're just spread out and time is different.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: So it's just yeah with the clipping stuff too, Like
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: finding time to record now is crazy. When I first
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: moved to we started that band in twenty like eleven,
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: when I first came down to LA and it's very
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: easy to spend all day at Gionathan's house making songs.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: I didn't have anything else to do. Literally, my calendar.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Was free, like my Google calendar. Yep. I'm free for
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: the till the end of time.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: Currently, I've got nothing going on.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Has there been have you guys been like you said,
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: I there's a point when early in relationship where Rafa
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: is like the big dog or the more prominent one,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: and then you you're after Hamilton.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Is there is there any tension?
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: There is there any sort of like guilt survivors You
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: know that the I deal with a lot.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: Of survivors guilt, but not with that relationship. Really, I
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: think the tension is always from it's not from within
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: the relationship, right, it's always from outside, But it's always
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: it's and it is often like I, how do I
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: where it has been with me? And Rabbit's not really
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: like this now. But at some points early on it
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: was like, well, how what can I do to even
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: this out? Because there's no way I can get the
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: thing isn't out yet, right, there's no way that I
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: can get them to see it. So what's the what's
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: the thing that I can do the level this playing
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: field or something?
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: What do you mean the thing isn't out yet.
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: Like when we were making blind spoting or whatever, you know,
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: for example, like trying to get.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: That once this comes out, I think it's very obvious that.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: We're a duo.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but right now it's not here. But so you're
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: feeling I'm doing half the work, but the world sees
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: you as being the guy. Yeah, I want you to
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: feel like I value your input into this.
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I used to worry about that a lot more,
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: but we've we've gotten pretty good at it. But yeah,
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: talk about being a dead is the best thing I've
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: ever done.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: It's not even close, but it it did.
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: It was that I really liked being on the road before,
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: and I really enjoyed. Yeah, there's a certain kind of
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: like high that you get from that, like not sleep
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: like different city, every day kind of life. And now
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: I just literally everything is to go back home. Like
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: how much can I minimize the time away from home?
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Is there a flight after the show? Yeah?
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: I'm on Red Eyes.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: All the time, man like like I yeah, or that
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: the you know the show I'm working on right now,
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: New York. I'm my lap whatever. My last day of
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: work is. There's a seven am flight the next day,
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: and I'm on it. You know, they can get me
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: on it.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: I'm on it.
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: And here it's the if you put me on that
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: midnight red Eye, I'll take that one.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: Mostly they don't like me to show up the day
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: of that.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: The more you start to like get you know, put
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: more miles on yourself, I don't say get older. You
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: start to realize I can't do that red Eye flight
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: and show up it like, hey, I'm here.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Everybody, I'm here to work and I'm ready to work.
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I won't be good exactly, but again, like that's
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: actually less of a concern for me. And then spending
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: time with my kids like if I get to do bedtime,
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: I'll take being shitty tomorrow.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna need extra makeup today.
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: Uh so yeah, so that thing is has been interesting,
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: and but being a dad is it's the it's the.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Most surprising thing. I mean, I know it's the best thing,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: but talking about some like really like specific things for me,
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: I'll say, just to give you an example, like how
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: much that like the kid. The moment the kid is born,
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: you're actually meeting who they are, and it just reveals
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: itself more over time, Like from the day each of
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: my three daughters was born. They're that same person, but
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: they were the day they were born. It's just because
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: I just see it more. Their personality has emerged more
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: over time.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: Man, it's so real.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: And so yeah, they're not empty vessels. They don't show up.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: They don't show up like O, well, just put whatever
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: personality you wanted me.
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Don't know.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: I don't think I thought that's what it was going
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: to be exactly, but I did think i'd have slightly
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: more influence than I do.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: For sure, turns out like.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: I don't really have any Sometimes I get lucky, but
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: he to he's really into music.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: Which is great.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: And we listen to so much music every day, and
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: he's got you know, for for a two year old,
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: like you know, generally they want to listen to the
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: same things over and over again. But his his playlist
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: of songs that he loves that you can sort of
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: play anytime is like probably thirty songs long. Now, like
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: he's you know, like he's made some musical stamina.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and now are these are these kids songs?
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: No?
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: Almost none of them. I mean, he likes the Bluey
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: theme song Come On.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: That's which I don't think is really kids programming.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: No, he doesn't really watch the show.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: I watched the show, but every time the loops back
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: to the song.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: It's a show for parents.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the cartoon parts for the for the kids,
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: but the actual contents.
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: For the parents exactly. That show is so amazing.
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: But big fan of of of uh.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: G n X.
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: Like he was like that was you know, which is
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: amazing that it you know, it came out. It was
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: for it was literally his generation, and he like that
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: Kendrick Lamar halftime show. We were just watching it again.
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: He watches it daily. We've had to limit it.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Eat your vegetables and then we can watch the.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: Kid literally what we do, Like, that's not the statement.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Have a lot of common because I just watched that
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: recently too, again.
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: Like yeah we yeah, that's on all the time and
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: he has his favorite Peekaboos, his favorite song on the
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: which is inappropriate.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: I'm a where my seven year old's a TV off kid.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: He calls that song mustard.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she was excited to see Mustard at the super Bowl.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: That was that.
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: Mustard too, And every time it comes out, he goes here,
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: cup Mustard. Yeah, so g had Ex's is out. He's
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: a big Brandy Carlisle fan. Didn't get that from me,
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: saying I like a lot of choices that are his own.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: Also, that's I would like.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: The musical festival that was like the big stage is
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Kendrick Lamar and Brandy Carlisle.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah and clipping, Yeah, he only likes a cup all
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: of my songs, but he does ask for them, which
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: is very sweet.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: He goes one played Dada rapping.
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: Breaks my heart and then I'll play a song and
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: he's like, not that one, but yeah he's he's.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like he discovered I left the room.
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: At one point and came back in and knew we
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: were We had been like cruising through Apple Music on
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: the Apple TV, which is how crazy it is that
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: he can use remotes and stuff. But I left to
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: use the bathroom song. I came back and he's got uh,
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: some Egyptian pop song on called Bumbum that he's just
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: dancing and he's that. He insisted that I added to
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: his playlist right then, and it is like that's another
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: thing in heavy rotation that he discovered entire time.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: I didn't know.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: I had to go look up what it was about.
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: It turns out it's like about a guy who like
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: accidentally gets drunk uh when he's out with his friends
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: and like the hilarity that ensues.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like a novelty song.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: Ah.
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: This dude Muhammed was apparently like a that's which sounded
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: fake to me, But that's because I don't know nothing.
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: Uh uh apparently like a very big star and.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: I don't know, so that stuff's crazy.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: But yeah, him that that thing about them already being
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: their own people.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: I think I was surprised initially.
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: This has calmed down somewhat now, but by how much
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: anxiety I had, uh right when he was very small.
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: The pregnancy too, Yeah, I was having I thought I
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: was sick, Like I was in the at the doctor
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: all the time, and it was like I think you
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: should try.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, just like anxiety if I'm about to be
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: a dad.
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: I wore one of them seven day heart monitors, you know, say,
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: like I was really, I was like, there's something wrong
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: with me and I wanted to be a dad. It
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: was just it was like this incredible amount of fear.
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: And then when he was small too, just that this
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: is the not knowing if you're doing anything right and
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: what does that even mean? And like the whole you know, yeah, really,
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: I there's a person who hasn't. I'm a pretty nervous person,
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: but I don't think of myself as an anxious person.
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: I haven't had a ton of anxiety in my life,
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: but that the last couple of years, I've been like, yeah,
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: more stressed that I ever.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Have you figured out what it's connected to exactly? I
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: mean as a dad, I don't. I don't need to
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: be like why would you be anxious? But I get
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: but have you sort of figured out what it is.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Or where it's coming from I think it was just.
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: I, you know, really loving somebody very deeply is anxiety
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: inducing in some ways, and that like I can't control everything.
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: I can't make everything good for them, you know, And
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: I am so mostly I think at peace with like
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: the that not everything's going to be good for me,
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, yeah, but you can't. You can't
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: wrap your head around mine. Everything's gonna be.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Good for him. Yeah.
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: And then with a kid like I had never I've
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: never loved anybody that much, Like that was wild.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: So this this thing of.
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: Being like, oh, I only want good things for you
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: and that's impossible, and I I just like that really
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: stresses me out. And I think I also had a
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: I had a great childhood in a very hard situation,
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: you know, saying in hindsight, like we were poor, we
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: were East Oakland, we were you know, like it was
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: a lot against us. And I was so happy and
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: like I had so much fun and we have everything relatively,
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: and I am so worried about his happiness all the time,
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: you know, I'm just like, oh, is this what you
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: want to do?
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: And I like and am I around enough?
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: Which I'm really worth of being around That's the one
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: thing I know is that both my parents were they
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: were there. They weren't together, they were both very present,
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: you know. So that's the one thing I try to
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: control as much as I can. That just that he's
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: about to start preschool, Are we choosing the right I
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: don't know, like what and it's preschool. We could change
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: it if he doesn't like it, go somewhere else, like where.
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: It feels like such a stressful decision right now.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: We live in a time where the algorithm once it knows,
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: oh you and your dad, let me send you some
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: things to be anxious about you and.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: Get the hell off. Yeah, barely.
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: When I have to promote something, I tapped back in
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: but mostly off that.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: But I think there's just the idea that there's also
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: just so much more information to make you feel anxious
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: and and that before when our parents were around, they
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: just had to sort of you know, there's that one
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: doctor's bock book, but other than that, it was just
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: like just like figure it out, whereas now there's like,
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: oh it's a book. Here's a book for kids who
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: are one month and three days old, you know what
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: I mean. So like there's just a lot more information
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: that wants to make you anxious. But and I understand that,
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: Like and I as a dad who travels a lot,
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: and as a dad who if I talk about work,
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: my kids sort of have that moment.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: Like are you about to leave? You know what I mean.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: But it's just like often I'm and I don't travel
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: as much as I used to, but like even coming
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: down here, I have to go. I'm two sleeps. I'll
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: be gone for two sleeps. You have to describing things
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: and sleep. So I feel like it helps, like.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: It changed everything so immediately.
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: And all for like, I love my life right now.
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: It's so great, but it was, it is. It's a bit.
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: It's a big.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: Change, you know. So yeah, and it's great.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: It makes me when you're on the road, you're always
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: like you said, it's like, oh, I'm glad to be
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: here after the show's gore the air for yeah, get
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: how to get home?
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: How do I get home from here?
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: This is like I'm I'm like, oh, this will wrap
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: up soon. I mean I have at nine o'clock, but
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: I can just go straight to the airport, you know,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: you know. I like the idea of like all all.
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: Three of us in clipping now have young children and
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: like that. Jonathan described it really well one time. It's
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: just like, yeah, I love playing shows.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: I love it. Nothing's better than hanging out with my daughter.
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: Though there's another I would of course rather be doing
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: that than anything else. So it doesn't really matter how
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: much I love this.
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that more.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Just unfortunately I can't figure out how hanging off
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: my daughter will pay. Yeah.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can't say come to the show, yeah,
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: or you do like a family channel where you just
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: put your family on the internet.
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't do that.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: No, I can't do it either.
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: I can't do wish that for him. He is very cute.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Though you look at your kid like, man, you could be.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: You could really make some money, kid, I.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Talk, I be your manager, We can really be out there.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: That has occurred to me. Yeah, but I think he's
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: he's pretty introverted like me. I don't think you would
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: love it, so.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: For sure, for sure. Before we get out of here,
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: a couple more things. Uh So, I moved to the
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: band in ninety seven, and I was really moving to
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: be a part of the San Franco comedy scene. But
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: I found an apartment in Oakland. So that's how I
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: ended up in Oakland. I lived in the city, but
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: I was even for a while, but I was always
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: in Oakland because I met Melissa. She was in the
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: East Bay, and I worked and had a day job
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: in Berkeley, and so it was like I was.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Like, again, it's sliding door things.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: If I found an apartment in San Francisco, maybe I'm
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: a different my life's different, but I'm so like and
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: I've only learned more as i've sort of been in Oakland.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: And we moved back to the Bay in twenty fourteen,
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: right apart met you, and my one oldest doughter was
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: born in San Francisco.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: By the two kids were born in the East Bay.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: But so there's just this real sense of like my
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: kids are growing up with this idea of like we
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: are from Oakland or we are from the East Bay.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: Can you talk about for people from the outside, Because
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: there's a thing and I heard you, we've talked about
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: you've talked about before, like that you told me when
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: you were doing a blind spotting that like you had
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: to explain to the to the costume people, no people
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: from Oakland were things that say Oakland on.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not it's not weird. It's not the only
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: tourists do conversation.
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, actually we do wear It's not like everybody
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: can just be wearing shirts to wrep the city. Yeah,
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: they kind of go walk around for a second.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: You know, I can. Yeah, So can you just explain
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: what that is? Why?
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: What is the secret sauce there? Because you know, a
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: lot of people love their hometown, but you've traveled all
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: over the world, so you've seen other places.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: What is it about?
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: And I feel like there's also part of the conversation
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: that I also want to have East Bay versus Oakland.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: That's interesting, like like you.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: Also went to school in Berkeley, right, Yeah, so there's
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: also the Berkeley thing versus Oakland.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: And I find myself in times like trying to figure
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: out I live in Oakland.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: I love Oakland, but also I love the greater East
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Bay and also I did live in Berkeley, you know.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: And I'm not mad, you know, and I'm not trying to,
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: but just but there is a there's all these different
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: ways to describe this place and to name this place.
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: A lot. Yeah, and it is inside baseball. But I
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: sort of feel like there's.
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: No more baseball. But that's not true. I mean the.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: Balls, dollars, yeah, the ballers, the boers.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: But yeah, so like I just feel like you are
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: from that place, so you and I feel sometimes I've
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: gotten to the place where I'm really careful with my language,
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: like because I know that sometimes people from Oakland are like, hey, come,
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: I'll slow the down, you know what I mean, Like,
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: you're not you didn't go to high school here, so
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: settle down.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay, so you know, okay, I'll set
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: it out a little bit.
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: You know, but you I don't know, you've been there
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: off a long time. But but yeah.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: As a as you're like, you're I've been here long,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: You've been alive.
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: But okay, I think this is this feels like it's
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: I'm speaking from a particular perspective of my age. Also
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: that should be madeware. So like, I don't know how
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: this applies to people younger than me, but it used
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: to be and this is still to a degree true.
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: When you tell people you're from California, it's either La
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: or San Francisco, right, Like those are the two things that.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: People know yeah, sure.
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: So part of being from the East Bay was about
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: differentiating from that. It was hard line about we are
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: not San Francisco, and you know because you're there, like
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: culturally they are very different experiences. But also like yeah,
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: we just hated that thing, like that's not who we are,
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: Like we're we're over here and we're own thing.
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: We're either it's.
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: Sort of analogous to the Brooklyn Queens thing, but like.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: The cities, different cultures and differsonality.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: Functions the same way sort of.
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: And so there's that Oakland being kind of like the
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: biggest East Bay city, like the kind of hub that
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: also became kind of a catch all for East Bay, right,
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: And so there'd be again like if you're away, you
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: could tell people from San Franciso.
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: No from Oakland, then you'll just match just across the bridge. Whatever.
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: If you start saying saying if you start saying things
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: like Hayward or San Leandro or whatever else, Rito, Albany
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: where I lived, like all of it, you know, Richmond,
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: all these other things, people, it got so granular that
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: people couldn't take it. So there was also this generalization happening,
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: and for people who are really from Oakland used to
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: be like you got used to being like people say,
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: I'm from Oakland, Oh where we'll part you from, you know,
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: or I'm from there too.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: Oh well I'm from Piedmont, you know.
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: Which is actually like part of Oakland but you don't
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: want to you know, or you know, was like a suburb,
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: or you know, I'm from Hayward people. Yeah, so there
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: there's this this other kind of like Oakland chauvinism, because
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: Oakland feels special because it like was the hub.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: It was like it had the the.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: It was a historically was like a rougher area, you know,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: although I don't know, we were all scared of Richmond.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: But so yeah, so there was there was that too.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: So yeah, there was like a badge of honor with
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: being from Oakland, from this like home of the Black
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: Panther Party, this like real like sort of important like cultural,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: culturally relevant thing. And so I always I was born
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: in Oakland, and my dad always lived in Oakland, and
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: my mom then kept moving further and further north. So
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: I was, as a person who was kind of out
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: of place anyway, would always just claim Oakland because I
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: was always living there. And then when I moved back home,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: I moved to Oakland, so you know, I've always felt
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: like that was my home. But I also, like my
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: mom lived in Albany, and I would never claim that,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: like that's crazy. You don't want to say that in
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: public Like already is a very like well off small
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: suburb with great public schools and where the most of
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: the population, at least at the time were families of
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: professors or my mom's case, they had one student housing
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: complex down by the train tracks called the University Village
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: where like graduate students with families could could live. And
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: so my mom had gone back to school after my
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: brother was born, and so she moved to the to
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: the village, which is really desirable because again, like great
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: public schools in Albany. So if you're gonna send it
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: the thing, I understand so much more now than I
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: did at the time. But like we had just saiducated
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: in public school, you could live in Albany, then there
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: you go.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: And so.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so there there's always this kind of like division
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: and explanation and like where are you really from and
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: all this stuff, But yeah, a lot of it, at
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: least when we were young, was about being able to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: claim something that felt tough, you know, both because like
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: it's cool because you're a young man and you want
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: to feel tough, and also because like there's a certain
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: kind of safety with having people be a little bit
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: afraid of you for no good reason, right, like for
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: someone like me, you know, who's not a scary person
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: to lead with something that's a little bit like.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: Oh and like that.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: There's another great thing about Oakland is that like there's
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: a kind of danger associated with it, even though like
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: a lot of us are very artsy, like, even though
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: it's a sort of and it's you know, you get
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: your you get your like kumbaya, you're sort of hippiasthetic
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: mixed right in with all your gangsterism and stuff. So
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: it's and it was, so it's very useful to be
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: able to come from a place that is that mixture,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: you know, where I got the hard part for Free
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: God having to actually portray any of it. And so yeah,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: that's what I think about it for me. But it
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: is like sort of the rich cultural history, the history
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: of protests, the intellectual.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: History of Oakland, you know, and it.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: Is all there, and it is all there actually in
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: the Holy Spade. But the neighborhoods field different. But like
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: you know, I can go home and talk to people
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: about books. I can't really talk to people in La
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: about books.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: Really.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's so it's that there is something different there, and.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: Especially for artists, but kind of for everybody. There's a.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: I think if you're from there, there's a there's an
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: understanding that like it is special, and a lot of
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: us end up fighting to.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: Keep it that way or to figure out how to keep.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: It that way and to figure out how to be
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: able to survive and live there and make better livings there,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: and you know, you're still living there, so like this
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: is a this is weird, like really part of that
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: it's like how to you know, how can we grow
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: this here instead of having to leave so much to
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: figure this out and so and often at odds with
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: our elected officials or you know, like there's often not
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: a lot of help. But because I think historically that
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: is also true, like the way community works there is
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: different than it is in a lot of places.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: Certainly that it.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: Is here, you know, which geographically is very different. There
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: are all sorts of reasons for that.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: But but yeah, La was northern was that area. It
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: would be like nine different cities, like it would not
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: be just Los Angeles.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so we you know, there's a.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a kind of community there that like does
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: feel different. And I think when you're from there, you've
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: lived there a long time, there is this sort of
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: uh drive and desire to continue to give back to
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: it and continue to figure out how to.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: Make it a better place, because we all love it.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: So much.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: And even when we're not there, like we want it
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: to thrive. Like the so much of my identity is
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: about being from Oakland and being from.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: The East Bay in general, and so like.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: As that changes, I feel it is like shake, it shakes.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: Some things for me. You know, there were.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: Yes, but people could you know, families that I knew
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: can't live there anymore, all that stuff, like all these
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: just home the things that you called home, And that
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: happens for everybody everywhere. But I think us or for me,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: loving that place so much, like it takes on like
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: more of a Sometimes you feel like your foundation gets
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: shaky when I don't know if the a's leave heard
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: something you know, like or whatever, or the or the
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: warriors leading a sign I'm not still It's like that's
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: what a yeah, a slap.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: In the face. You were on the better side.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: You want some championships and the services like, oh we'd
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: like that team now, yeah, bring back over here.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it's just the sort of connected to
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: all this is there's not every city has an activist culture,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: but I don't know that every city demands that all
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: of its people sort of be engaged in the activist
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: culture of the way that Oakland does. And Berkeley is
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: part of this too with the free speech movement and everything.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: But the idea that like talk about, because you could
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: be doing everything you're doing and not be regularly engaging
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: in activism, right, you could just be like, I'm working,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: I'm a good representative of my city, but you are
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: also regularly sort of like speaking out and saying things
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: and supporting things someone regularly. Yeah, yeah, I mean I
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: see you know, yeah, I'll say regularly.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, more than most. All right again, more flowers,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: thank you?
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: Sorry?
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Here's the thing. When people call on you,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: you do answer the call.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: It's not like you're not like, sorry, I've got a
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: big movie coming out. I can't really be out here
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: looking like I care about these care about humans.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so why do you answer the call?
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think it was how we grew up,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: you know, I mean the Berkeley all the Berkeley High thing,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: like we were walking out of school every day.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: I don't know, prot it was a protest. It was
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: at least a protest a week.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: Just like, and the teachers were like, oh, we got
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: to wrap up class earlier.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: I know, you got a big protest to get to.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: You know. It was like, uh, we'll stop math today
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: because you gotta get up.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: You guys got to get out there.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: Nuclear here.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: I have some extra signs behind the desk if you'd
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: like to, you know, whatever.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, it was just part of it, and I
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: don't know it was.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: It was sort of a surprised to find art separate
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: from activism actually, like upon leaving, you know, I didn't
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: really know. I guess I had heard tell of it,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: but like I didn't really know how you participated, and
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: I didn't know that it existed.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: I was a poetry slam kid, and I was like whatever,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: like I you know, Mark Mamuti, Joseph one of my mentors,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: like they're there literally was no separation between like any
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: word he said, and like any way that his body
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: moves and like his connection to activism, So like I yeah,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: so it's just yeah, it's just kind of in there
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: and it's not you know, it's not all great. There's
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: you know, there are some ways that like Berkeley is
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: really fucking annoying man like Oakley can be really annoying.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: But also I would take it over, you know, I
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: would take an awareness, even at the expense of just
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: being able to have a nice dinner, you know, to
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: the other side of it, to only ever having nice
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: tenders with like not having at least some some awareness
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: and desire to like help people that like things should
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: not be as they are and how do I at
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: at least some exploration of how do I fit into that,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: and how can I affect that and how can we
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: affect that for each other.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: There's also to me with the thing that when I
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: think about what I gained by moving to the Bay
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: Area and living in Oakland specifically, there's an effortless intersectionality
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: that happens there where you just stumble across different communities
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: and so then you leave and go, Wait, you guys
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: are freaked out about those things. I didn't know, to
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: be freaked out about those things, you know what I mean,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Like I was just sort of around people saying those things,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: and you know, so you know that we just sort
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: of that even though it's funny, Oakland has this very
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: hard you know, like you said, like you know, like
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: don't oh you're from Oakland up. But also like Oakland
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: has this like as long as you're cool, you know. Yeah,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: and also down for the people, down for the cause,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: down for the people struggling, down for the oppressed.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and not a lot of.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: There's not a lot of pretense about what that looks
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: like on some what kind of person that is, right,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: It's a diverse community in all senses, economically, ethnically, and
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: just so like there's yeah, I feel like a lot
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: of places you'll go and there's there's just an assumption
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: that a person who cares about this is this kind
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: of a person, or has this kind of a job,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: or does this really you know, and that's just not
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: true there. Like you said, like the intersectionality is very common.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: It's almost like it just is how it is, you know.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: And I think that's one of the things when you
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: talk about the reason we are so proud of it
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: when we're from there is because we you know, you
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: go away and you is the first time when you
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: realize that not everywhere. It's like oh and you're starting
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: to explain yourself all the time, and the explanation always
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: ends up starting to look, I'm from I'm from Oakland.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: So and then you know and you hope that that.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: Will be enough. Is that you know?
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: So you yeah, yeah, it's a different way of seeing things.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: It just is it just it just is. I don't
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: know and make it, but I grew up in it,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: so like, yeah.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: You're and you're making it. You're making it.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: My penultimate question, are there any Is there any life
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: lesson or thing that is true in your life? Are
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: things that regularly help you sort of get through the
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: day or sort of process the world, or things that
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: you're like, this thing is true, this thing I've learned,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: this thing my mom said, this thing I read one
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: time really helps you sort of like a mantra or
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: anything that's sort of like like that, you're like, this
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: is one thing.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: I know a few.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: I have a couple of good mantras and me and
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: Ralph's mantra for since we started making rap songs. Energy
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: up expectations down, is it?
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: And so energy up expectations down.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: When we were doing rap shows at you know, the
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: Senior Citizens Center in Berkeley or whatever like that, this.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: Was the thing like you're gonna put if you this
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: is what we're doing.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: This is what we're doing now, and I'll put all
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: of myself into it, and I'm going to expect absolutely
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: nothing in return. I'm doing this because this is what
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: I do, and so has served me very well. I'm
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: always pleasantly surprised when anything comes back. It's not the point.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: It's again like about being a process person. And my
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: dad always told me that you love people for exactly
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: who they are and uh not who you want them
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: to be. Who love them for who they are, and
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: when they tell you who they are, you get to
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: listen to them and you get to hold them to that,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 4: you know, And that is a thing that has really
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: served me, like.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: That, you look for it, that's who you are.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: If I love you, then I understand that you are
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: and I don't again, energy up expectations exactly what to
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: expect from you, because you've told me who you are.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's and it was never about what I
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: get back from you necessarily. You know, it's about I
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: love this, this is who this is you, that's what
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: I love and uh yeah, so those those are probably
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 4: the two best ones.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: That's great, that's great. We don't know, we get too
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you for that last question. What cause would you
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: like people to support? What nonprofit?
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: What? What thing that's going on? Do you want people
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: to know about?
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: The organization I've been doing the most work with lately
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: is one called cool Hand Series, which is run by
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: a woman named Madison O'Leary, and it's the hype as
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: we bring films and filmmakers into prisons and then have
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: conversations with inmates after post screening. So it's allowing art
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: to make its way into the prison system and for
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: the artists, for the creator, also getting us to think
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: more about where our stories come from and who there's
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 4: who are stories are for and.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: Where the story.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a great organization is basically Maddie doing all
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: of it. Ralph and I have brought Blind Spotting into
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: a number of prisons at this point. They're also doing
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: playwriting and and theater workshops in there, so producing plays
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: and uh yeah, and she's brought so many great films
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: and filmmakers in already a lot of work in California,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: a lot of New York. Also, we've done work in Utah.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: She's doing work in Texas. I haven't been there yet,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: but we're trying to figure that out. So yeah, it's
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: it's a great org for like the artist friends of mine,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 4: like the naming names who are listening to this when
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: when you get the call just say yes.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: It's so fun.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: It is actually like you know, it's it's a great,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 4: great time and a great and eye opening experience and
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: you get to have some really beautiful conversations and meet
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: really beautiful people, and you know, it's a way to
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: acknowledge the madness of our for profit prison system in
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 4: a very like hands on way and then figure out
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: at least start to spend a little bit on well,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: what what can we do? This is how it is
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: a how can we change it? And be like what
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: can we do with it in this in its current state?
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: And I think that's actually for a thing that is
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: pretty simple at its course, just like come in to
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: prison and do and talk to people who show art
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: and talk to people who are interested in art.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's called the cool Hand Series, cool Hand Series,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: and I haven't done that, but I have done so
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: at Saint Quentin, and I think people don't understand that
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: you get afraid of, like going into a prison, but
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: when you go to those places, you immediately feel like,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: who's afraid of? They're just so happy that I'm here.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, the just and there and there happen,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: and the things that I say that I know they'd never.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: Have heard before, and they really appreciate it, you know, yeah.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's it's always a beautiful experience. Everyone is
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: thrilled that you're there. And also and I end up
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 4: getting so much out of it, and every time I
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 4: go so sure.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: Uh, last of the podcast is called Who's with Me?
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: Are you with me?
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: I'm with you? All right?
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: Always be weird to find out.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: Actually, thank you.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: Finally, I didn't want to be here at all.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, Thanks Verving.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: That was my conversation with David Diggs. Love talking to
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: that dude, could talk to him for hours and hours.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: Just sort of good person.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: As you heard.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: At the end, he shouted out the cool Hand Series,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: which is a curated series that brings filmmakers and their
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: films into prisons so that the population there can see
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: these films they might not otherwise see, and also they
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: can engage enough conversations with these filmmakers.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: It's a great idea.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: I do a lot of work with San Quentin in
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: my area, so I know the power of going into
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: a prison. It is powerful for the people in the prison.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: It's also powerful for you. Thank you DEVV for being
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: on the show today. Come back anytime. Also, thank you
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: to Rabigren here in La where I am right now,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: who's producing this show, Rabagren Productions. Thank out to Pushkin
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: Productions who is helping send this podcast around the world.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: And thank you to who else. Thank you to me.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: I showed up and I did it. I did my best.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: Special shout out to Skyline Studios as always, who lets
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: me do things in Oakland. Next week, our guest is
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: Nava Mao. Nava Mao is famously known for being one
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: of the stars of the Netflix series Baby Reindeer. Nava
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: Mao is also a transgender actress, which I only mentioned
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: because we talk about that a lot, and I want
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: you to tune in for that episode because the last
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: two weeks we've talked about the transgender community. But I
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: should probably have somebody from that community to speak for themselves.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: So next week, nav Mao and also once again, please
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: like and subscribe Hype the Channel, give us five star reviews,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: and once you do all that, then share the podcast
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: with somebody in your life who you think would dig it.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: That's the important part. That's how we build it. If
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: you share this podcast with one or two people, then
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: we can really start to do some things and really
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: get the word out there.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: Who's with me? Are you with me? I'm with you?
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: If you're watching right now, I'm pretty sure I'm with you.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: I can't imagine that Dana White and Joe Rogan made
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: it this far.