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Transcript

REWIND: VAN LATHAN - Angola State Grilled Cheese (Pt. 1) · Eating While Broke

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: We are not in La today. We are over here
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: at eighty five South Studios with the special guests of
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the day. Van Lengthen is in the building. You guys
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: may know him as podcaster, Academy Award winning executive producer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: You know, but I like to acknowledge you as the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: man that stood up to Kanye West in the TMZ
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: office commissioner of the Commissioner. And we're gonna leave the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Commissioner of the BBI off. But Van, before we get
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: into where you're at today, I want you to take
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: me back to where you were when you were broke.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: What dish you're gonna have cook for us to eat today,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: so you can start with that.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: So I get out of college around I would say
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: two thousand and three. Two thousand and three, I get
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: out of college, and there's this like transitional period in
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: my life because I was always interested in people's stories,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: and everybody's stories seems so linear. Every story seems linear
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: when you're at the end of it. Everybody has a
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: moment that something happened for them. Everybody has a moment
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: that they realize something. But when you're in the middle
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: of it. You don't know. You'll know when it's going
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: to happen for you, you'll know how it's going to happen
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: for you. Certain people have more certainty than other people do.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: But all you can do is work and try. And
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I get to this point, and it's this weird, odd
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: point to where I'm like, nothing that I thought was
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: going to happen and or no way that I wanted
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: to go is the way that I wanted to go.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: So you're graduated, we're taking back to when you graduated.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Right, And so I'm working at best Buy And this
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: is the same time that The College Dropout has come
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: out around that same time Conye's first album, and he's
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: talking about great album. He's talking about disillusioned high school
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: graduates who now have to realize that they're not going
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: to conquer the world, that what they're going to do
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: is enter into the American workforce and they're going to
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: be a part of something, and everything that they did
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: it's not just not as meaningful as they thought it
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: was going to be. In a way, it's spiritually debilitating.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: And the song is the whole album is about breaking
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: free of that. Really it's about saying, hey, like I
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: dropped out, but I dropped out. I took a path
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: that ismired, let's admire, but in a way drowned upon
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: in order to be more alive. Like I'm not killing myself.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: And so I'm to the point to where I'm like
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: having an existential crisis. I'm like, yo, I'm killing myself.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: It's not it's not working. And so many things happen
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: within this two year period. My parents divorced. My mom
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: leaves the house, and that was very transformative for me, because,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: like when a woman leaves a home right away, everything
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: gets less.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: What you were you were talking about after college though?
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Were you living at home with your parents?
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Sure?
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Oh you were. During college.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: I went to Southern University and Van Ruge I had
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: gone away to school, and then I came back and
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I went to Southern University because I wanted to be
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: around all of my friends. So I was still living
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: at home. The school was about ten minutes away from
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: where we lived.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, So how old were you when your parents were
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: like twenty twenty two or twenty three, and so you
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: actually got to see it.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I got to see it, right, I got to see
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: it there's two people divorcing and not mommy and daddy divorcing.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: And I also got to see your.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: What do you mean they're not mommy and daddy divorcing.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: It wasn't mommy and daddy divorcing when you're ten and
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: your parents break up, you're thirteen, fourteen, Mommy and daddy
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: are divorcing. In my life, Crystal and Terry got a
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: divorce because I had enough of a frame of mind,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: or a frame of reference, should I say, for these
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: people to know who they kind of really were at
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: that point. So I knew the anger that my father had,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: I knew the paranoia that my mother had. I knew
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: that these were two people that were on diverging spiritual
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: growth the journey, should I say, and that they were
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: no longer compatible, and like what that means, Like when
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: you're a kid, it's like, oh, you guys gonna get
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: split up? Okay, who am I going to live with?
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: It's not the concern for me. The concern for me
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: is do these people still get to live the version
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: of their life that they want to live now that
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: they're no longer together? And so when I saw that,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: you know, my mom, I was actually happy for them
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: that they had made the decision. I was happy for
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: them that my mother I thought, Okay, this is a
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: new life for her. She had felt beaten down by
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: a lot of things emotionally, she had felt unsupported by
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of things emotionally, and obviously, with my father
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: doing some of the things that he was doing, he
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: must have been unhappy too. So maybe this is a
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: new life for them. I'm young enough to think at
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: that point that severing that type of relationship in some
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: way could be a positive for those two people as
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: much as they loved each other, and loved each other
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: until my father passed away. But immediately she left the
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: house and it was two niggas living in the house
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: that didn't know how to do shit, Like the house
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: just became It's like, it's just like, I remember.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Were you young, the youngest two or something? Who are
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: you the youngest in your family? Because you said it
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: was just the two, Yeah I was.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: I was the youngest in the family. I was the
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: only one still around. My sister had gone. You know,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: my dad had other kids, but they were gone. But like,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: so it's just me and him living.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Your dad had other kids, Yeah, what do you mean he.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Had other kids, Nigga, you know what I meant. Yeah, yeah,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: that's what I'm saying. And so it was, it was
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: that's another reason why you're happy for her to go
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: and have a chance at a life that is for her.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, And.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: So you know, me and him are there and it's
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: like she she's your mom, but she's also like a
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: genius in creating. She's a genius in keeping things running.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: She you get taught this lesson of misogyny, and the
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: lesson is that somebody leaves the house and they gonna
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: make a whole bunch of money. And my mother worked
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: too and made a lot of money. But somebody leaves
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: the house and gonna makes a lot of money, and
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: then they come back into a castle and everything that
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: they touch inside the house turns to go. But you
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: don't realize that there's somebody who's keeping your life beautiful.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: There's someone who's who's attention to detail, somebody whose ability
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: to multitask, somebody who who looks out for things. Somebody
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: who when something's broke, they go, Okay, you gotta fix that.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Somebody who when something doesn't work, they okay, we gotta
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: get it working. And the moment that she left, it
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: was the house crumbled. It fell apart, like the turn
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: on the stove, po the pop. And I look at
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: him and he looks at me, and I'm like, right,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: she gets that fixed. That motherfucker popped till we got
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: out of the house with him. Never fixed it, right,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: The washing machine broke, never got fixed, you know what
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: I mean. It's just just like little stuff like that.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Like my mother used to come out. This was a big,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: beautiful home on about sixty acres that we had had.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: She would come out and she would spray paint, like
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: like power washed the outside of the house to where everything,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: like just me and him were just too focused on
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: the individual things that we were doing to care about
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: all of that. The place was just less beautiful because
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: the woman of the house had gone wow. And so
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: during that whole time, I'm also broke. I'm also broke.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm I'm working at best Buy. I'm like I'm
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: treading water. I don't know what I want to do.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And then Hurricane Katrina comes. And so when Hurricane Katrina comes,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: this is like a weird two year period of my life,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: like everything changes, like society crumbles, everybody's strapped for cash
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: because you've taken on so much more. You got relatives
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: living with you that come down from down in the city.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Everything's different, and now everyone's trying to stretch that dollar.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: You're eating different, you're feeling different, and it just doesn't
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: feel like there's any abundance. It didn't feel like that
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: in my life. And so that's when that was the most.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: That was the point, honestly, from two thousand and three
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: to two thousand and five, that was the point where
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I figured out myself. I moved to LA in two
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: thousand and six. By the time I got to LA,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I could fucking handle anything. I could handle anything I
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: had buried homeboys, I had put in the ground. There
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: was nothing the world had showed me like some really
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: ill shit. And so when I got out there and
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: was dealing with LA, it was a piece of cake.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: So you also navigated, So what this are you gonna
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: have us eat today? Real cheese, grilled cheese. It's at
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: the staple and the most simplastic and delicious meal. Did
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: you have to add any tomato, soup or anything? Or
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: you just didn't The legendary.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Fuck all that butter bread cheese. Shout out to my
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: uncle David resting piece. Shout out to my uncle Mark,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: rest in peace. These guys taught me the beauty the
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: grilled cheese. You know where they learned it at? Where
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: so you think? Nah? Where you think they learned the
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: grilled cheese at these two uncles? What do you think?
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Someone screamed, somebody say it jail jail.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Yea.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: I can tell what y'all you've been. I can tell
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: what kind of life you have been living. They they
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: they learned the grilled cheese in jail. They were grilled
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: cheese mechanics. Okay. They came back in here and they
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: was like, I don't know it was jail because they
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: because because what because yeah? Because because we know right
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: there was grilled cheese mechanics.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, well let's see, let's judge your grilled cheese.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: I haven't made it in a long time, because the
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: nigga is not broke no more.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: You know what I've been doing this show for. This
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: will be our this is our third season. We're taping
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: right now. And some of the dishes are so good
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: on this show that I go home and I'll make
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: it broken, not make it they're good.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Butter is a very it's very sensual. Look at butter
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: washes washes was washes. Oh daddy, you hear that. Look
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: at the butter go Oh my god, butter is like delectable, right.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I use butter on my cooking.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Really, what's that? What's that?
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: That?
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Blood pressure?
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but I'm really healthy. We're really healthy.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Like what you get a church, Well, I don't.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Know if you could do a good grilled cheese. I'm
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: watching the way you're making this girl.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: It's not gonna be good.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I'm concerned. I'm concerned because I feel like you are
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: gonna butcher this grilled cheese.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: It's not it's not gonna be good. I can already
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: tell you it's not gonna be good. You know what
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: I'm saying.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, because these jail birds, they definitely jail
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: the right way. How much cheese is gonna put on
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: this grilled cheese? This is how you did it, broke. Yeah, man,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: you put three pieces of cheese on your broke grilled cheese.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you know this, but like I'm
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: a big ass nigga.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nah, bro, you're being judged. And right now this
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: grilled cheese is looking like it's not. We're gonna see.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: We'll see well, I mean, we'll see what happens. Cash.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Your question is this show to judge people, is to
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: get inspired?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: You know what? The first the first season and a half,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I was very nice with people's feelings, and then I
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: had someone Tuna Castro the motherfucker. It was terrible. Well,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: we tape in LA. Usually like eighty five did this
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: whole thing for us. Shout outs to eighty five. They
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: did the whole cooktop and whole build this whole kitchen.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I'm in love with it. Now, I'm gonna have to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: come to Atlanta more.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: You like Atlanta?
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I like it. It's cool. I haven't seen
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: much out here yet.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Where do you travel to? Where do you go?
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: What do you mean? Where do I go?
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Where do you be at?
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I'll be I'll be at LA, New York, LA New
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: York is, Okay New York, Okay, La New York. I'm
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: from there. You know.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Let's focus on y'all story for sure.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Okay. So you graduate, you moved to LA. Yeah, and
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: you graduate with what degree?
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I have a political science and English degree.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, and your goal in life before you left college
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: was to be an attorney, okay, and then you got
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: to La.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: To be uh in the movie game?
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Okay? What happened in between those times to make you
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: change your career?
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: I spoke to a lot of attorneys.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: You found out they don't like their jobs.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: What I found out. So, my brother Jabriel is one
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: of the most brilliant people I've ever known. Super brilliant,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: like ridiculously smart, right smart in a way that's almost inaccessible.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: And he went to Morehouse here in Atlanta, and then
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: he went to Stanford, one of the greatest law schools
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: in the world. And he didn't have a specific love
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: for the law, if you ask me, but he is
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: just an incredibly successful person. And it didn't seem like
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: to me like that was going to be a fulfilling life.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: What I like to do is commiserate, talk, create. Obviously
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I like to go back and forth on all of
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: that stuff, But more than anything, I want to create
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: things that made people think and discuss. And I don't
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: think that that was going to be something that was
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: possible as an attorney.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, Now a little backstory, So did all your siblings
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: graduate college? No, okay, or any any of them similar
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: to yours shows, similar to your path.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: My sister's a poet, Okay, She's one of the greatest
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: poets in the.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: World, really, I think. So she made money on it.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: She made no money on it, but she is ridiculously talented,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: and I'm inspired by her every single day because she
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: creates no matter what the circumstance is, okay, And that,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: to me is more impressive than somebody who gets flown
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: all over the world to create. She creates because she
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: must create, and not because it's incredibly lucrative for her
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: to create.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: So it's in her, It's in her, and that makes.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Me feel good.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: So you get to LA. What's the next step.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: I work for a place called Capricorn Programs for a while.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: What do you do there?
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: I produce a show called Cybernet. It's a video game show.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: So when I first get out to LA, I am
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: playing video games for a living and then reporting on
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: those video games on this show, Cybernet, and writing.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: For the show, okay, and then then something happens. What happens.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: That company goes belly up financial crisis. So when that
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: company goes belly up, guess what I get to do.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Live on unemployment? Hell yeah, I love unemployment.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Yep. And I become one of the world's foremost pick
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: up basketball players. Every gym in La you see me,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: twenty four hour fitness, you see me.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Oh you didn't try to hustle on top of the unemployment.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: I definitely he did. But the most thing that I
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: did was just play ball and vibe and right. I
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: wrote so much. I wrote so much, so much stuff.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: But how long were you on unemployment? A year?
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Two?
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: You can be on unemployment two years.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: You have to remember that at this time it was
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: the financial crisis, so they were extending benefits to meet
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: people's years two eighty and then it's like going into
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: twenty ten basics and let me tell you what happens.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: This is a true story. So I'm on unemployment, I'm
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: doing my thing. I'm walking into the gym LA Fitness, Hollywood.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Everybody there knows me. I'm walking into the gym. I'm
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: walking into the gym. And as I'm walking into the gym,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: a lady outside the gym says, hey, you want to
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: take place in the c you want to take part
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: in the SURVEYM Like yeah, sure, No problem. She's like,
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: you take part in the survey, and we like what
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: you say, will give you five hundred dollars.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Oh shit. And I was like, hell yeah.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I do the whole thing. I do my
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: whole little stick. I'm on a little small camera that
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: she has, and she goes, we like you, we want
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: you to come out to this place, do even more
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: stuff right and take place in this gigantic, bigger survey. Well,
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: it's not a big deal. We're gonna have you try
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: out these products. And when you try these products, we're
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: just gonna ask you what you think about them. I'm like, cool,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: the problem, all right. So I decide to go to
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: this thing. We cheese it up right now.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: It actually looks really good. Yeah, i'moroughly impressed.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: And so I go to this thing. It's Van Eys,
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: you know where Van Eys. So I go in there
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: and I'm into the little deal or whatever, and a
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: guy goes, Okay, this is what you're gonna do. I
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: want you to go in here, take a shower and
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: use this shampoo because they're doing product testing. Take a shower,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: use this shampoo. Right when you get out of there,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: brush your teeth use this toothbrush in this toothpaste. Cool.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: It's like, don't do this, don't do that stuff. We
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: took those products off the list. And then when you
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: come in here, we want you to shave with this razor.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, I'm not shaving my beerd He goes, yeah,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: well you can just shave at the top and on
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: the and right here. Just tell us what you think
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: about it. I'm like, cool, no problem. So after that, cool,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: I do all this stuff. I get into this little
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: room and inside of this room, it's two other guys
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: in the room and they got towels on and I'm
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: looking around. I'm like, yo, what's going on here? What
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: is this? I try to weigh myself on the scale.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Scale doesn't work. I'm looking in the room. The room
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: looks like a gym, except I know that we're not
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: in a gym, Like, what's going on? So I start
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: using the the the razor, doing like this. And when
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: I start using the razor, somebody jumps out with a
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: camera and they say, hey, are you ready for the
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Gilet Fusion pro Glide Challenge. It's a commercials And I'm like,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: oh shit. And so I'm using the thing. I'm doing
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: the whole thing. I'm going back and forth to God,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: I'm having fun. After the thing is over, I walk
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: in there and everybody's clapping, like, hey, why how are
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: you doing all? You got this a great job. You're
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: in a commercial boom boom, So don't make five hundred dollars.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: I make three thousand dollars.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Yet the freaking out so high.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Because it's a uh, we're done, baby, A little special.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: That's a really good looking grilled cheese. Look at that.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: The cheese is bubbling, guys.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: It's bubbling over and it's a little buttered in.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I just learned a trick and making grilled cheese. What
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: is it to stack a lot of cheese in the middle.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, cheese is actually a pretty staple ingredient to
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: the grilled cheese, I.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Know, but I usually just put like one or two
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Yours is like, first of all, you did it really impressed.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I tell you, I tell you, I tell you why though,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: that's why you're healthy. Though you said you were healthy before.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Look at the like the even colored color. I don't
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: know if it's you did it really impressive grilled cheese?
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, yes, you just slow and slow, okay. So look,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: so I'm there and they're like, okay, so it's Saturday.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: So with the five hundred bucks that you were promised,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: you get that it's Saturday, so you get double the
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: session fee on that, plus like whatever you get like
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: a holding fee and all of that stuff. So I
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: ended up making like three thousand dollars for this commercial.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you what kind of American I am.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: I come home and I'm doing my unemployment and it
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: asked if you made any money? Yep, Why I put
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: the money on there?
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I've seen niggas get the death penalty
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: for less. So so I put so, I put the
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: money on there. I put the money on there, and
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: this is what happens. They then readjust my unemployment quarterly.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Like me, yeah, I would have told you not to
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: do that.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: So quarterly. So it goes from being I go from
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: getting five hundred dollars a week in unemployment to seventy
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: five dollars a week in unemployment. So I go, okay,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: this is the deal. It's not Obviously they don't think
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: a nigga can live off this. So I'm just gonna
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: go up to the unemployment office. I'm gonna talk to
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: these people. That's why I'm gonna I'm gonna go up
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: to the uneployment office. I'm gonna talk these people. I'mna
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: straighten this whole thing out. So I go up there
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: to the unemployed office in Pasadena. I'll never forget. The
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: lady was like, baby, ain't nothing we can do. It's
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: in the computer. I was like, uh, I can't live
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: on this blah blah blah in the computer. So I
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: needed a job. I had to have a job. But
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: you know what, the funny thing was the ge let
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: that commercial ended up like making me. That commercial ran
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Oh shit, I didn't know anything. I didn't know anything
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: about being a commercial actors. So I would get a
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: holding check every now and again. And then I started
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: making money off the commercial. But that's later I didn't notice.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: I came home, and when I came home, I was like,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: I have to find a job. I pulled up entertainment
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: careers dot net. The first job was TMS tour guide.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: You were a tour guide.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Yep. It was being a tour guiy TMZ was starting
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: a tour and the tour was like you go around
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: to different places and you show people different things that
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: happened like on TMZ, like we would show you where
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Josh Hartnett got diarrhea. We would show you where Michael
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Richards fucked up at the laugh Factory. It's actually a
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: pretty good tour. I'm actually I was one of the
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: first GUIDs on the tour. I was the first guid
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: on the tour. So actually a little bit of pride
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: in the fact that we were able to jump that
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: off and make it a thing, because it's still going
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: right now, right. So I get in there and I
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: do that. I apply.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: That's a brilliant concept now that I think about it.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: The revolutionize the whole score game. So I apply, and
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: they're doing the tours like American Idol. They have all
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: of these tour guys in there, and then every week
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: they cut a guy. So I'm in there and like
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: they have me coming in there and whatever. I get
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: the whole thing. I start with the TMS tour. This
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: goes through to about everything I'm talking about. I start
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: with the TMS tour. I think April of twenty ten,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: maybe it might be twenty eleven, whatever it is with
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: the tm Tour. Then by July I started in March
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: by July, I'm on TV every day.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Within a couple of months.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Harvey came in took the tour. I was up there
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: doing my thing, and I told a joke and he
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: liked the joke so much that he brought me in
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: and put me into the.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Into the newsom, into the newsroom. Yep, okay. So then
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: you get this newsroom opportunity, your pay goes up, benefits.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: What are we looking at?
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: So this is the way it was working. I was
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: making money because I was getting tips on the tour.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: So I was probably making fifteen hundred dollars a week
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: straight cash off the tips on the tour. I was
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: killing these motherfucking white people. I was killing them.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: I was.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: I was fucking killing them. And then you would you
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: would come in and you would have like people from
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: there was tourists like they were from Australia, they were
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: from Canada. There was the thing that we do on
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: the tour to where if you see a celebrity on
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: the tour, you stop the bus, you get off, you
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: shoot the celebrity. And when you're driving around in La
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: at certain times, if you know where to go, it's
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: impossible not to see famous people like if you were
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: coming to LA and you and you were hanging out
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: with me, and I was like, hey, you want to
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: sit around and watch celebrities all day? There are three
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: or four places I could tell you where it's going
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: to happen, and so we would see them, and I'm
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: a good spotter. I would spot celebrities and we would
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: see them, and the people would go credit. We all
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: kinds of people. Fucking Lady God got Leonardo DiCaprio, David
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Beckham and just the other niggas that be around, just
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: niggas that be around us, and you would just say,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: you know the people I'm talking about in La, they
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: just they'd be around. You see them all the time, Like, hey,
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: weren't you in Yeah, like you see them. The funniest
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: thing was b T Wars weekend, right because there would
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: be all kinds of celebrities that I would recognize that
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: the bus wouldn't know who they were, and so the
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: bus wouldn't believe me that these people were famous. I'm like, yo,
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you know this motherfucker? Are two
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: number ones? We ain't never heard of him before? No,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: he signed to Luducris and them he's that's like, actually,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: I don't want to say the guy's name, but like,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: that's actually that guy is a huge singer. Like you
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: guys should probably care about him.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Wait, don't know, fuck, keep going no.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: But I mean so anyway, so you know, I'm making
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: good money because I'm making my tips off the tour.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: I'm doing three different jobs for TMC. I'm also on
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: the camera with my on the street with my camera.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: I'm on the street with my camera. I'm doing the tour.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're doing the tour and the newsroom and all this.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: On the tour and the newsroom. They gave me as
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: mean jobs as they could and.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Did you join as they were like a startup or
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: they like startup level, so they were.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: This was two thousand and so they started in like
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: two thousand and five. I got there five years later.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: That's considered still startup.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Probably, so they were they were the newsroom cast was established,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: so I had to break in. I'll give her. I
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: always give Harvey credit for this. He the same joke,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: because it's very hard to break into that room because
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: when you're in the room and you're everybody's fighting for airtime,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: the camera's always on Harvey. But as far as you
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: you got to say something, you got to do something
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: to stand out. So you get you start to maximize
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: the moments that you have, and if you're on that
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: means somebody else isn't. So once it's ten motherfucker's in there,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: they're not looking for the eleventh motherfucker to come in.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: But Harvey knew that I had that joke that.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I could tell on the I want to hear the joke.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: It kind of doesn't work without us being on the tour,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: but so we so we passed by the Hustler store
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: on the tour, and so it would stop on the
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Hustler tour, and this was a different time to tell
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: this joke. Okay, So so we would stop and I
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: would have the bus stop right by the hustle and
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: you know, Larry Flynn is right, Larry Flint started Hustler,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: and I'd be like, this guy's husher store. Larry Flint
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: started Hustler. And I don't know if you guys know this,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: but Larry Flint is one of the most important men
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: in the history of civil rights. And they're like, what
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: are you talking about? And I was like, well, you
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: guys might not know this, but Larry Flynn is in
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: a wheelchair. He was shot. One of the reasons why
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Larry Flint was shot was because there were people that
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: were upset that he was doing interracial photo spreads in
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: a hustler. It's very true, and the bust will go, oh,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that, and I would go like, yeah,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: so Larry Flint, it's very important to a right leader
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: because he took a bullet so that I could fuck
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: white women. That's that's good, right, And so I remember Harvey,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, and so I go and so they
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: don't want to laugh. They don't want to laugh. But
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: I'm in the room and I say that everybody, and
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: it's so far out of left field, and they've never
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: heard the sound of my voice before. I remember shout
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: out to Nina Parker, who worked at TMZ with me,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: who's still a dear friend of mine to this day.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Beautiful black woman. Nina was looking at me like, I know,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: they didn't just bring one of these niggas into the
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: newsroom where these goddamn Tiger Woods is. But that joke
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: put me over in the newsroom, and so and he
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: knew that they would. And so after that boom they
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: all left. Another thing I tell the kids, I don't
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: want to be hyper verbose about the whole TMZ situation,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: but another thing I tell the kids is your ability
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: to succeed at a place is not just about your talent.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: It's about your ability to recognize opportunity.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: So the very first year I was there, I realized
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: that everybody goes home for Christmas, so everybody takes off
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: for Christmas. So if you watched the show, it's always
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: a buzzy newsroom. Everybody is around, everybody's doing all of this,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: but it's bare bones in there, like any point after
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Thanksgiving to the news year New Year, because everybody's rotating
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: in and off vacation, but they're still doing the show.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: They still have to do a show. They don't go
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: dark for two weeks like everybody else is a daily show.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: I did not go home. I stuck around, And when
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: I stuck around, I got all of the time to
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: talk and be on camera that I wanted to. So
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: in that month, I endeared myself to the audience. Right
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: after that, he comes in, he goes, we're gonna give
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: you a raise, We're gonna do all of this next
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: time contract with UP and I just my stature at
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: TMZ just went up to the point to where I
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: think maybe a year two years after that, I was
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: a producer.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: So let's take let's let's as forward to the the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: iconic moments. Kanye, Kanye West him. I love Kanye, I
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: love old Kanye.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Now you like him? Now I can tell yeah.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: You know what, it's so funny. So my favorite rapper
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: is jay Z and my little brother's favorite rapper is Kanye.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: But now Eagle acknowledges that jay Z's the ultimate goat.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: So you know, we have a great, great relationship. But uh, Kanye,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: let me try this girl cheese, go for it.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Bless you as straight from Angola State Penitentiary right there.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Let's see. But Kanye, old Kanye was simply amazing to me.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I loved how outspoken he was. I don't know what
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: happened in the Kardashian era, like what kind of drugs
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: they put him on or what went wrong because he
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: was always pro from the bush statement like he was
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: always that guy. So take us to that day, what's
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: going on from beginning to end?
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: So Harvey had gone to that buttern So Harvey had
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: gone to you know, the week before then, Kanye had
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: an album going out, and this is after the Trump stuff,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: and he had, you know, gone off at his at
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: his show and all of that stuff. Harvey had gone
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: out to Calabasas. He was so giddy called me up
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: to his office and he goes, look, look it is.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: It's me hanging out with Kanye West. So I'm like whatever,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: you were like whatever? Yeah, I'm like at this point,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: I don't give a fuck about that. I hate that
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: type of ship. I'll tell you what I hate. Don't
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: talk to me about who you was hanging out with ever. Like,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: if you go to a party, when you come back
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: and talk to me about the party, talk to me
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: about how the vibes were, where the drinks good, was
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: the music good?
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: So I was in the room, you want to hear
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: about the drinks.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Give a fuck? If jay Z came to your party,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: I couldn't give a fuck. What do that? So it's
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: a good party, friend, that's the only thing.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: You've been here for a.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Whole So it's a good party because he was there.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Shout out to him like it's a good party because
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: he was there. I don't give them welcome Thank you,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: I don't care at all. Like, hey man, the drinks
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: was good man, DJ was crazy. He played that old
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: school juvenile all of that ship. Now I'm gonna come
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: to the party. If you start mind party, If Jay
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: show up to your party, it's a I guess it's
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: a big deal for your party. I'm not saying that.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I'm saying that it doesn't make me want to attend
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: your party because there are famous people.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: There, of course, but I'm saying that. Okay, So Harvey
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: comes to you, He's like, yo, I was kicking it
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: with con.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: This is this is all I heard is Kanye, Kanye, Kanye.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: And so he shows me the thing and him and
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Kanye have some kind of report that they're working on
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: or whatever. I don't know. And so a week after
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: that he like, I'm in the newsroom. And by the way,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: at this point, I've been very outspoken on Kanye, because
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: this is Kanye posing with Donald Trump, this is post
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: all of that stuff. So it comes up to me
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: after the morning meeting. He goes, hey, I was like
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: what there he goes, we didn't want to tell you,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: But in about ten minutes, Kanye was about to show
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: up here. I was like inside of TMZ and he
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: was like yeah. He was like all right, just let
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: you know all the mics are going to be down.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Because the way it works is for TMZ Live, which
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: is the l show, Showa comes up the middle of
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: the day. You have a red button at your desk
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: and a thing at your desk. Anytime you have that
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: red button, you can talk. So after Harvey and Charles
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: do their thing, you hit that red button, you can talk.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: So when I want to jump in and say something funny,
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: I jump in and say something funny. When I want
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: to jump in when it's time for them to come
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: to me, like Van van Van talk, you can talk.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: But they had all the mics down because they just
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: wanted to be Harvey, Charles and Kanye West. Okay cool.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: So I go sit at my shout out to Charlemagne
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: because uh. I go sit down at my desk and
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: I start watching the interview that Charlemagne did with Kanye
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: that dropped that very same day when he was walking
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: around Calabasa. So I started watching that. I'm at the desk.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Kanye West comes in, very polite guy. I says hello
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: to everyone and everything like that. They go over to
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: the team's he live to start doing teams? He live.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: As soon as the cameras come on, he turns into
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: a fucking demon, right like when I say to you,
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: when I'm like it just I come alive in the
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: nighttime type shit. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, he's
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: talking now. I mean, I'm not saying that.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: He was being say demon like the stuff he was saying.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the demon I'm not demonizing. Kanye West was like
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: the stream of consciousness, the whole thing. I'm like, oh shit,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: but I'm still not paying any attention. I'm not paying
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: any attention. I'm looking at the interview. I'm not a
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: part of this conversation.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: So you're looking at the interview. But watch she kind
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: of looking.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: Up or Kanya not really. But remember I've been told
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: specifically that I'm not part of this conversation. So it's
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: on them. Uh, Kanye says, uh a slavery four hundred. Oh.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: By the way, Kennice Owens is with him. She came
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: to the office with him.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know how you're not looking, not watching the
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: interview and still looking at the shar interview.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at the Charlemagne interview. They're walking around Calabasas, like,
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: you know, they they Kanye got his hair, you know,
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: they having all of these deep ass sauce. I'm looking
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: at but I can. I can hear him though, because
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: he starts to scream. He doesn't just want to talk
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: to Harvey and Charles, he wants to talk to all right,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: So I can I can hear him. It was like, God,
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: damn this nigga, Damn that nigga on one and so like,
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: I'm still looking at it, and he says, slavery four
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: hundred years, four hundred years. That seems like a choice
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: to me, and everybody's.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, audible, how look when he said that, couldn't
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: see her.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know she. I think she was in the
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: other room because there's a side room. A couple of
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: weeks before that, and maybe like a month before that,
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Candace had gone viral for shutting down some some students
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: that had come to a turning point us a meeting
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: where she had said I hear a victim, and I
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: don't like you, and fuck civil rights whatever and and
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: whatever she said to them, and Kanye was like, this
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: is the type of thinking that I like. And then
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: he put it Kanye put Candisons on like she like
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: she she By the way, this is if any want
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: to make a judgment, call about Candace Owns, go to
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: wherever you go to for wherever you want to go
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: to or whatever. But he put her on basically, so
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: she was with him for a little while. I think
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: he got a lot of his his his early political
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: when he was first in that new sort of right
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: sphere of thought. I think a lot of he got
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: a lot of that stuff from her. I think he
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: probably still does it this day, from a lot of
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: those types of people. Anyhow, So he's talking. He says
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: that I didn't say anything when he said that. There's
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: a there's a misconception that he said that. And I
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: was like, nah, I didn't like. I didn't like like.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: I didn't say yeah. People think it was like a
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: big deal. I didn't say nothing, right, I didn't say
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: anything at all? His business? He asked, He asked very simply.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: He said that everyone gasps. One other person had said once,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: one other thing about something that he had said. But
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: most of the people in the room this sidebar real quick.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: You guys have no idea. I guess you actually probably do.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Because Atlanta has per capital more famous people than anywhere else.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: You can't go to the fucking mall without goddamn nigga.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: Wasn't you in atl But like, but just fame just
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: paralyzes people, particularly in LA like fame just like just like,
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: oh my god, it doesn't matter what he would have
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: said up there, He's saying stuff, and people are like,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ is the most famous person that's ever been
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: inside this office before.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: But I'm surprised because at they crossed passed it a lot.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: No nobody liked that like it. It's like, especially to
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: be in the office doing that. It's one thing to
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: have to see people out on the street and get
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: a but you know, there's a specific TMZ celebrity that
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: we talk to all the time. You know, nobody like that.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: So take us back to that moment before you Superman.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: So he says that, and he turns around and he goes,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: he says the whole thing, and he goes, does it
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: feel like I'm speaking freely? He says that. He turns around,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: he goes, does it feel like I'm speaking freely? Okay,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Now let me tell you a split second just how
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: my mind works, Like for me, I just have like
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: my insecurity is that I just can't be the nigga
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: you could fuck over. I don't have to be the
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: number one guy. But like, I'll fight you until you
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: realize you can't fuck over me. I'll play you in
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: basketball to I realize I can't be the easy guy
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: to get over on. Okay, So if you ask me
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: something like that and I didn't say anything, there's toxicity.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: The immediate says, I gotta answer this question, like I
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: can't have allowed him that somebody might think that. It's
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: like everybody was, like you are filled up with the answers,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: is not. I didn't want to feel like a weakling. Yes,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to miss my opportunity to tell him
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: how I feel like he was acting, because then it
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: feels like I'm the one that he could just kind
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: of get off on. So he says that and not
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: gonna know y'all, I don't feel like you're thinking anything,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Like actually you don't know you I remember I said,
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna go back to the whole thing. But
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: you look crazy right now, like everything that you're doing,
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: not just now but every other time, like you look crazy.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: You're not thinking and particularly this. It's not even about that.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: It's about what the regression or how can I put this?
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Not regression, it's what a guy like that represents because
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: we empower him, like spinning your youth, like arming somebody
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: with this great, big cultural gun. Everything that Kanye did
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: were I was down in Louisiana where he said George
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Bush doesn't care about black people. He was my god.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: Like all the things that he would say when he
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: would speak out, like you defend them, you advocate for him,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: you do it, You stand by and you just the
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: little cultural gun that he has, a little megaphone, it
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: just gets bigger and bigger. The gun just gets bigger
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: and bigger and bigger, and then one day you're staring
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: down the barrel of it. Now the things that he's
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: saying that you've empowered him to say are being turned
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: right back at you, and so like it's like, hey,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: don't shoot me, Like why why are you shoot at me?
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Like you know what I'm saying. It's like I'm the
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: same dude like you you Kanye West. I love you. Yeah,
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Like if I'm not about to diss him, never would
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: I say to you know, you're a genius. Everything that
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: you've done. Is you deserve all the stuff that you've gotten.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: We love you, but let me tell you how you
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: make us feel. That's it. That's it. I'm not trying
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: to go toe to toad with like a cultural deity,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. I'm not trying to act
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: like he hasn't inspired me in the ways that he's
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: inspired me, or act like he hasn't done the things
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: he's done. Like, we don't do that where I'm from.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: We give you your props or else we would be haters.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: But I just have to let him know, like what
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: you're doing right now is particularly pernicious to us because
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: we're in a very specific place in this country. And
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: when you go back and you watch it, you listen, Now, look,
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: my thing is this any one person like that. There's
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: no person that's going to be able to be a
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: nigger whisperer and change what somebody thinks. Like there's a
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: day to day experience that people have that has to
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: do with their surroundings, who they are, their input and
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: output that's going to affect how they look at the world.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: And you're not asking anybody to be to change that.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: But what I do think is important as black people
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: is for us to be cognizant of how what we
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: do affects other people. For example, I worked at TMZ
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: for nine years. I'm not in a moral position to
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: chastise anyone, like literally, like not in a figurative way.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: I'm not in a moral position to chastise anyone. I
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: understand compromises that people have to make in order to
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: get to where they want to get. I understand that
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: sometimes people might walk into situations and not really know
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: what it is that they're getting into. And then on
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: the other side, you know better than you do better, right,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: So it's not about that. It's about just alerting someone
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: when you feel like they're doing harm and then that's that.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: And then after that, after I've said my piece, you
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: can choose either you can continue to harm me or
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: you can be different.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: So how did that milestone with Kanye change the trajectory
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: of your life? Because it definitely had a huge impact.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: So it was really the beginning of my career. And
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: the reason why it was was because number one, I
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: was never going to be able to leave TMZ with
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: the reputation that they have there. And this is not
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: shots at TMZ or anything like that. Once you leave
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: a place that has such a distinct perch and culture,
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: it's very difficult for people to believe certain things about you.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: And I think going old.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: What do you mean, like, what kind of culture, like.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Are you familiar with?
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: I am familiar with them. I'm just saying, describe it. Ah,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: I'm saying from the journalists perspective, You're saying like.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. So, look, there's a reason why
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: like a TMS exists. And honestly, the reason why TMS
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: exists is the need for people to feel good about themselves.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: The reader or the watcher to feel good about themselves.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you why. So the celebrity in America is overloved,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: way overloved, over important, over everything. It just doesn't matter
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: that much that somebody is famous or rich. It just
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: really doesn't matter that much. Honestly, it's probably a net negative. However,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: it's so it's so precious to people that there's a
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: need to feel that that person has done or is
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: doing something wrong, like.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: To more humanize them.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Right, So, like the question becomes this, say, take take
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Kim Kardashian, right, everybody saw her fuck right. Everybody saw her. Fuck,
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: it's just sex tape out. Everybody saw her right, everybody
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: watched the sex tape that comes out. And people get
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: to make the decision about whether or not they would
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: have that happen for them, whether or not they would
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: go through that in order to be Kim Kardashian, And
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: it makes them feel good to say no. So it
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: makes them feel good to say, you know what, I
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: wouldn't want that life. It's too crazy. It makes them
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: good to feel to say. It makes him feel good
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: to say, I wouldn't compromise myself in that way. It
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: makes him feel good to say, I would never do this.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: I would never be around these people. I would never
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: do that. I would never do this. It makes him
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: feel good to say, Hollywood's too weird, I wouldn't do that. Right,
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: And TMZ feels that bloodlust that people have, and it
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: lets them disconnect from the idea that these people are
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: better than them. It lets them disconnect because every time
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: somebody gets a dui and it goes up to the thing.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: Every time somebody gets a divorce, everybody in here knows
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: people have been divorced. Yeah, there's no magic or sinister
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: story to a divorce. Sometimes it don't work out. It
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: just doesn't work out. But you want to believe certain
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: people will never be happy because their lifestyles are antithetical
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: to happiness in a relationship. So want to believe antithetical
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: like you like you, you you, you want to believe that, right,
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: you want to believe that teams gives you that. In
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: order to do that, TMZ has to treat those people
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: like they're not people. They have to treat them as
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: if their concepts celebrity is not a person.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: That's why I guess TMS comes off a little bit
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: invasive and ruthless.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Right, Well, no, because they're.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: They're not treating they're they're treating them kind of like.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Well, you have to write like even even the TMS
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: tour was a celebrity safari, Like what's on a safari?
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, animals yea, animals right.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: And so and so like when when you like the
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: tours celebrity so far as animals, right? And so you
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: do that, right and what you what you say is okay, Well,
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: in order to be a celebrity, the game is pr
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: at its base, right, So this is what you sign
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: up for kind of right, because like there are certain
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: things that you don't sign up for. I'll never talk
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: I'll never I'll never forget this. There was the sister
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: of a celebrity that had that had had something taught
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: done to them. I'll never forget. I'm not gonna talk
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: about who I had the conversation with. I'm like, Yo,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: we shouldn't do that. And they did the story and
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: this dude went on fucking and let us fucking happen.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: And I was like, Yo, we had to take it
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: down and apologize and do all that stuff. Like yo,
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: like there's a limit to this. And that's not me
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: making a moral judgment on the team.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Team.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: I'm just telling you the way things go. So like
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: when you know all of that, when you have an
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: idea of what drives that, like obviously they're they're moral. Uh,
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: there're things that you have to not care about to
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: work there. But most of the people there are good people.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: They're just desensitized to whatever was going on there because
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: that's where they work, like like that, like that's what
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: they do. I'm there, it's the same thing. Things are
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: coming in. At a certain point, you go goddamn, you know,
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: and it's there will be a little This is a
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: football player that had this video come out of some altercation.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: It was in and it said savage beating by this,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: and I was just looking at the headline, I'm like,
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: that's I don't think we should go savage beating there.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: Like I think savage is like a that's like an
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: interesting way where there's just little small things. The mayor
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: of DC died, Marion Barry crack maryor Marion Barry dies
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: like he died, and like, by the way, the people
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: in DC are going to freak the funk out because
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you guys know, but Marion Barry
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: was with Martin Luther King Junior. Like where I'm from,
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Like I deal with a group of people, the community,
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: people that are always categorized by the worst moment that
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: they have. And I don't feel comfortable with categorizing a
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: man that means so much to his city by the worst,
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: most scandalous thing he ever had. You can't talk about
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: his life without talking about that, but maybe in the
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: headline you don't do that.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: So so.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: All of those things start to start to happen. And
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: so for me, what the place represents, it's not even
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: so much a bunch of uh, not even so much,
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: a bunch of moral people that are running around trying
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: to get the dirt on celebrities. It represents our relationship
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: to celebrity and our relationship to ourselves, because there's no
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: fucking reason whatsoever why we should spend so much time
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: talking about what happens.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: In the lives of famous people.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: For more eating while broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.