Latest / DA CREW Podcast / HALF WAY MARK_ SEASON 2 DA CREW PODCAST _ EPISODE _100_ HOST LATONYA M LITTLEJOHN

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HALF WAY MARK_ SEASON 2 DA CREW PODCAST _ EPISODE _100_ HOST LATONYA M LITTLEJOHN · DA CREW Podcast

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night to night, every second Monday, and for a Friday of each Monthy,
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it's all see that you don't want to miss every body again, Good
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evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to the hundredth episode of
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season two The Crew podcast Tonight Tonight Tonight. I have my Facebook cousin joining
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us tonight. He's a comedian, Tony Banks. He was born and raised
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in Gary, Indiana, the home of Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, and
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of course the Jackson Five. Raised by a single mother of four, he
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struggled growing up in the projects against an atmosphere of drugs, gang activity,
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and poverty. To get through those troubles, troubled times, he tuned into
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comedy as a way to escape his surroundings. He says he kept his mother
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and his three younger sisters laughing and this was the beginning of him sharpening his
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skills as a comic. And he says that proudly, so, without further
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ado, mister Tony, are you ready? I'm ready, fam How are
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you? How are you? I'm doing well, just living a dream,
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living the dream, trying to make people laugh. You look good, you
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look healthy. And that's what we here for tonight. We here. I
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am am abundantly abundantly right, right, So let's talk about what got you
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into comedy. Yeah, Like, like my bio said, I grew up
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in Gary, Indiana, you know, Geary was it still is infamous for
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being, uh, you know, a place of gang activity, hard life.
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I was a skinny kid with big old glasses and I got picked on
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a lot. I got bullied back in the day, and I learned real
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quick, uh to do what we call back in the day was called snapping.
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And snapping was a way of like, you know, just talking about
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your mom cracking jokes quickly. And I found out real early just by cracking
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jokes I could make. If I made my bullies laugh, then I could
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get away. I couldn't run fast, but if I made them laugh,
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it was a distraction. And so I got real good and snapping cracking on
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folks, you know, using the yo mama jokes and just being quick with
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it. And then I learned, you know, that energy that I got
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from making people laugh. I said, wow, you know this is cool.
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I'm gonna start doing this all the time. So I would literally practice
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jokes at home on my sisters. I got three younger sisters who I love
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dearly. Shout out to them, what's up? Found And I would come
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home from school every day and they would be my audience. We would go
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in the living room and I would act like a comedian. It's just stand
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up and and just sling jokes. And they would tell me, now that
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ain't funny, Tony, that ain't funny, or they ain't crack up laughing.
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So that's how I started to just kind of escape my surroundings. You
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know, I grew up in the projects. I'm talking about government cheese,
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welfare, you know, uh ebt, Well it wasn't need be t back
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then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know, it was hard
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growing up in a single parent household. My mother she did the best that
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she could. Shout out to moms, but she always told us, you
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know, to keep our heads up and try the best that we can.
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And I would see her struggle all the time just to make ends meet,
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and it just it just it did something to me. So I would I
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would try my best to make her laugh when she got off from work,
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you know, to try to take her mind off of the day. I
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could, I could see how stressful she was. And one thing I did
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learn is laughter. If you can get somebody to laugh for half an hour,
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maybe an hour and a half, then you done your job as a
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comedian, because with them laughing at your jokes and how silly you are,
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it takes their mind off of their situation. So, you know, I
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was like, man, I'm doing something my part to say the world.
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I'm making people laugh. This is straight and that's how I hone the grash.
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So I'm like, well, why not do this and get paid?
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You know, I can eat by slinging jokes right now, I do,
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I do clean comedy, and that genre of comedy is one of the hardest
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to do. You imagine getting up and your material, your subject matter is
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you have to do it without saying any cuss words. You have to do
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it with family friendly material. That's hard to do. Most comedians can't do
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that. But and then on top of that, your audience is mixed.
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Know, I do a lot of college campuses. I do a lot of
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you know, like crackers, comedy clubs and things of that nature. And
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I talk about it all, man, I talk about it all, but
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clean comedy is some of the hardest to do. But I love it.
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I just I just decided, you know, if I I need to be
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able to say jokes with my mama sitting on the front road right and my
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mama loves Jesus, you know what I'm saying. So I can't be,
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you know, out there talking about hey, you know this, that and
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the other and Mama looking at me like I'm crazy. So I learned how
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to do clean comedy jokes. And you know, if you think about it,
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though, profanity is just feel the words they say, filling in something
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where you don't know what else to say. But you know, people sometimes
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let emotionally and you know they do some distasteful stuff. But yeah, but
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you know somebody, some people are good with it. Bernie Mack, who
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was one of my favorite comedians. Yes, yes, r I p rest
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Will Soldier. He he he could say a cuss word and have the whole
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audience cracking up. Right. He was just he was just he was just
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gifted like that. But can you Bernie Mack trying to do clean comedy?
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That that just that old? Noah. Now that's like that's like fake fake
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meat hamburgers, just right, plant based hamburgers. You're like, what right?
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So who are your favorite Who are your top three favorite comedians? Like
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I said, Bernie Mack is my number one. I do like Mike Epps
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because he's a homeboy. He's from Indianapolis where I live. I opened up
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for him a couple of times. Uh, So Mike Apps would be my
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second most favorite. And then I gotta I gotta have to include some of
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the young and come up and coming uh comedians that are that have been doing
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their thing for a long time but don't get any recognition. On the clean
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comedy side. There's a comedian, she's a female by the name of Small
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Fry Small Fry. She does Christian comedy, which is a totally totally different
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genre from clean comedy. I started off doing Christian comedy, but I found
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out that you limit yourself to uh, to a certain audience when you just
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do Christian comedy. You can keep it clean by doing clean comedy, but
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you can you you can branch out more and just just don't keep it within
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the church. I mean, it's okay to include God and some of your
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jokes right in church. Church people give you material all day long. You
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just go to church on Sunday and you can you can see all kinds of
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funny stuff, to to deacon, bled soul, falling asleep, all of
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that. You know. So, but but you limit yourself to just that
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genre. And I'm like, nah, man, we got to branch out.
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We gotta grow clean comedy. That's the way to go. You can
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talk about all kinds of stuff, the politics, the debates, you know,
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gas prices, coffee, you name it. Just keep it clean,
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you know, just keep it clean. We've been Facebook friends for a very
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long time, been a minute, and I've seen you know, some of
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the things that you do and your love for Halle Berry shout out to her
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now she's still your baby, and I would I would stick a straw in
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her bath water. That's how much I love Halle Berry. And the thing
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is she don't never return on to my phone call. You wonder why?
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No, I mean, clearly we're supposed to be together, you know what
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I'm saying. So any day now, any day, yep, I need
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my invite to that way, and I want to see it front right.
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No, but the you will get the invite and to the baby shower and
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all that because I'm gonna get her pregnant. I letna tell you that right
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now, Ali Berry, You're gonna have my babies, babies, babies,
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Well, are you prepared to raise them babies on your own? Because I
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know name it is Banks. My last name is Bank. I got a
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little koeen and just a little bit look at the see the watch. But
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yeah, you know about my love for watches too, I do. Yeah.
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I've been collecting these jokers for about twelve maybe fourteen years. Yeah,
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yeah, yeah, I got I got quite a bit of collection, you
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know. So I don't drink or smoke, so I gotta spend my money
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on something. And Halle my phone call, so I gotta I gotta her
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man right now. So yeah, that's that's my baby's mama right there.
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And we have been Facebook friends for a minute. It's been what a decade
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now, maybe ten years? Mm hmm. That's a long time, man.
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It is it is and just being able to get to know you through
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Facebook and seeing what you do and your love for halle Berry and you know,
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my love for USh and so you know, we gotta attend each other's
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weddings and stuff. You might have to come and do some comedy at mine.
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We gonna get it done. You know. It's it's all good.
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And of course we're joking around, but uh, you know, Facebook,
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Instagram, social media period. You got to be careful man, all right.
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I mean we were kidding around and all that stuff. But the some
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of the things I've seen on Facebook, I'm like, y'all giving me material?
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Oh my goodness. You remember shar Keisha? Remember her? I mean,
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I mean just stuff like that. I remember, uh, what was
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the name of that social media platform? Do it for the vine? Remember
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the Vine? May people used to upload videos and stuff, man, go
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live and and some of the things that they did. I was like,
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Oh, my goodness, entertainment, man, pure entertainment. I think that's
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where Country Wayne got started doing vine. Yeah, and I'm almost okay.
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Yeah, you never had in my space dating, Oh you did? What?
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Mm hmmm? And my space used to be the place, I mean,
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and just being able to put your music on your on your page and
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these little rooms you can go into. I was like, I don't know
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what happened to it, man, It's still there. It is m h.
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Nobody can remember that on passwords. Mine is hardly heary. But anyway,
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yeah, my space, man. And then and then some of these
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social media programs were like I said, earlier will get you in trouble.
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I have a daughter, though, who is a She's an influencer on Instagram.
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Shout out to my baby girl ken this. She is out in LA
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and she's doing real good. Man. She's making more money than me with
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this social media influencing thing. I'm like, man, these young people nowadays,
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they got a whole different muscle, right than what we had growing up,
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A whole different uncle. You can make. You can make a million
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dollars just going live and having followers and all that. I don't care about
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followers, right, it's just three things that I care about, Jesus Christ,
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my mama, and Halle Berry, not necessarily in that order. But
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and then the last thing would be making people laugh, you know. So
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if I could do all of that on social media, man, and not
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get paid, that's fine with me. We were talking earlier and I said,
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in comedy, if you can make somebody laugh and get their mind off
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of their troubles for just a few minutes, then you've done your job.
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It really is a gift, right, It's a gift because everybody got problems.
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Everybody has something they're dealing with. So if you could laugh for a
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few minutes and forget your problems, man, my work is done. You
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ain't even gotta pay me, but you gonna. You gotta get them coins,
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though, gotta get them coins. It's just money. What what's your
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take on the infamous Will Smith smack? Did Chris earn that? In your
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opinion? I? Uh, My take on that is this Will was out
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there laughing at first, but then dude, Chris Rock crossed the line and
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you should never cross. Yeah, he started in on this woman and he
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had Will had no choice but to go and defend that because at the end
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of the day, he had to go home with her. He wasn't going
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home with Chris, right, so he had to defend that. And the
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only way he knew how he took it to the streets. That street came
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out and Will, yeah, we saw that wes Philly born and raised exactly
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exactly he got gangster mm hmm. But shout out to Chris Ross, I
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mean Chris Rock because he took it like a man. So you know,
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I think he knew he was out of line. I think he knew he
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was out of pocket. And I mean, you know, it's one thing
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to make people laugh, but it's something else when you make in a mockery
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of someone's ailment, like you know, a lot of people she says she
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has alopecia. Who are we to tell her? She don't like, we
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don't know what's going on with that lady. So you know, for him
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to reference g I Jane and everybody you know who's seen it knows what that
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is or whatever. But I don't know. Just but like you said,
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Will laughed in the beginning, it was over there. He was over that
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key kN yep. But I think it was that little eye row she gave
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him like, also, it's funny handle that right, so he I mean
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that gagster click in them man, he he you know, I thought I
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was watching Bad Boys a movie for a minute. Yeah. He let him
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up, and all earlier I snuck into this conference rooms. I'm a hotel
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man, I got I don't want them to kick me out, you know
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what I'm saying. So, but it's funny that you mentioned that because there
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have been a few comedians that have suffered violence up on the stage. Life
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has been threatened. Uh, you know, things thrown at him and all
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that stuff. It's hard out here for a pimp man on these streets.
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But what's what's amazing to me is the power of the spoken word. You
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mean to tell me that you can upset somebody so much by slinging a joke.
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That's how effective and powerful that joke is. Right, That's something to
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consider, man. That's why I'm saying when you when you're a comedian,
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man, you you actually control the atmosphere of that venue. I mean,
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we feed off of energy from the audience, whether it's bad, and that
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energy you got to be a good steward with it because, like I said,
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man, there's some people, there's some comedians I know personally whose lives
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have been threatened, had to get escorted, you know, out of the
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building, escorted to their bus or whatever because of just slinging jokes man.
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And it's something. Yeah, that's wild, that's why. And it shows
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the sensitivity in people too. Exactly, You that sensitive man, because I
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talked about your medium shirt and you got mad. You want to fight?
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Come on, man, right, take it like a man. You knew
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you was in trouble when you wore that shirt. You know what I'm saying.
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You ain't look at yourself before you left the house, man. I
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mean, I've been on the receiving end of getting cracked on by a comedian.
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Never sit on the front row fan, get it. And I wasn't,
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that's the thing. You wasn't. I happened to be getting up going
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to do something, and he said something about my outfit and really, I
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mean I was flying. So nobody laughed, and so I'm like, jokes
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on you, sir? What right? He he he tried, he tried
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it, but he got my girlfriend real good. We were sitting at a
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table and she's a big girl, and people that were eating they left their
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chicken bones at the table, so he made a nice little joke about her
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eating all the chicken. And that was a good setup right there. Wow,
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because she was sitting at that table by herself. So you ever been
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to a comedy show where the comedian bombed? That's just as important as uh,
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you know, having the good nights. You got a bomb, yeah,
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or you never get better. I saw DC Curry get he bombed from
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Friday thing. A lot of people. He came to I live in Spartanburg,
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South Carolina, and he came here to the auditorium and nobody found him
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funny mm hm. So you know, I guess it's just based on what
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what you like and what you don't like. You knows. Sorry about that.
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FAM had a call coming in. You know what I'm saying, I
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think your show is going up. Is getting out the people anyway? I
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hope, So I really do it is so you know, I'm not trying
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to keep you because I know you're in the little office and whatnot. But
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here I got a question like, have you ever made up like a joke,
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like right on the spot spontaneous jokes? Yeah? They come like saw
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something going on in that very moment facially when you messing with people. You
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know. I was at church function one time, doing a clean comedy set
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at a church, and like I said, I saw a deacon. I
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guess he was a deacon because he had that suit on with the big tar,
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you know, talking about he was knocked out. I just went in
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on him, tired, you know, that type of thing. Yeah,
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but yeah, it's it's real. It's real easy to get, uh,
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to get spontaneous right in the right in the moment. One time, I
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forgot my set and I just had to. I had to. I had
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to wing your girl had to go. I had to just yo. Yeah.
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Yeah. It was telling me that you watched the presidential debate and you
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got some some material from that. What did you get from? Man?
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Okay? I was watching that debate them too old dudes. First of all,
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two old dudes arguing back and forth. And I'm like, man,
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this this looked like two old dudes in a nursing home arguing over a game
23:42
of scrabble. They were just going back and forth, talking about nothing.
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And I said to myself, this is all we got to choose from what
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happened. Where's uh, you know, where's Obama at with Michelle? We
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need somebody, man. We in trouble and I don't I don't really get
24:04
into politics like that, but man, we gotta do something right. We
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are. We're in a sad state. Yeah, people are laughing at us.
24:18
I can see food right now going. Yeah, we're gonna get there.
24:25
It's sad. It's sad, man. I just hope him pray that
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that that Grandpa Joe, uncle Joe, sleepy Joe, whatever you want to
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call him, he gets he gets some energy from subwhere man, because that
24:38
was that was sad fam that one. Come on now, Oh that's awful.
24:48
That is awful. I mean, I think he does have something going
24:52
on health wise, but I think he's trying to leave it unchecked, whatever
24:59
it is, because like there's been play times where he's standing there, spaced
25:03
out and like he's just looking out into nowhere and is anybody home? That's
25:08
what I want to ask, Hey, hey, wake up man, wake
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up bo right, it's tap him on his shoulder, a man, listen.
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Four more years of that. I don't think we can. I don't
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think no, he's gonna make it mm hmmm, because didn't he like in
25:26
his eighties, seventies, eighties something. He's he's he's like older than powdered
25:30
milk. That's all I know. Yeah, and so uh yeah, I
25:41
just you know, pray for them. Yeah yeah, wow yeah. So
25:53
listen, I'm not gonna keep you, but I do want to hear your
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best your mama joke. Uh, I guess so many of him. I'm
26:07
gonna leave you with this. Your mama's so black. That's it. Peace
26:21
to you, fail, love you, Oh wow, dang. Yeah,
26:30
So that is how we're ending tonight. I want to thank everybody for coming
26:34
in, tuning in and just laughing with us for a minute. He is
26:42
Tony Banks on Facebook as well. If you want to reach out to him,
26:47
book book that man. Let him make you laugh. You won't regret
26:52
it. So I want to thank everybody for coming out tonight. You know,
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as I always say, you may be the lay, but what's meant
27:02
for you will never be denied unto you. So until next time the night,
27:11
Ah person, pers all things ain't one thing, you stupid? Where
27:22
did all the blue sky's or ass thom