Latest / The Right Time with Bomani Jones / Roy Wood gets real about fatherhood, comedy journey & cancel culture | 11.05

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Roy Wood gets real about fatherhood, comedy journey & cancel culture | 11.05 · The Right Time with Bomani Jones

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Right Time, a WAVE original.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: My name is Beaumontie Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: a hater. It is the time of week where we
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: have a guest join us. And this time we had
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: to do some a different way.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: He is the author of Man of Many Fathers.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Soon to be best-selling author, Roy Wood Jr.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Sir, what's going on?
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Greetings, greetings. It's just a blessing to be in the
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: building in here with the Cash Money Millionaires. They ballin'
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: like I never seen. Ain't no toilet paper in the bathroom,
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: just some 10s and some 20s. That's such a Bun
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: B thing to say. It's an old Cash Money album,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: and Bun B said that on like an outro. Yes.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Just a beautiful way to enter a track. Blessings, blessings.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Ready to be in the building.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Also, a man that you don't necessarily associate with jokes.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Very funny, though.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, he is.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Yo, I have been pushing CNN to get Bun B
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: on Have I Got News For You. They are sleeping
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: on my man's political IQ, bro.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: They totally are, but it's not going to be my spot,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: is it?
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: No, we can have more than one black.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I know you have more than one black, but I
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: just know my spot might be tenuous. I mess around
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: with Busy when they call me this dude. And I
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: was like, hey, Lance, hit him up. Let him know
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I free all these other weakies.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: I love what you do on the show. I think
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Bun B would be a great addition. I really think
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: there's a Cameron and Mace world. I don't think they
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: would do it. because it's mainstream media and they kind
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: of operate to the left, you know, the mainstream situation
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: by design. But I don't know. There's a lot of
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: interesting black folks that I want to get on that show, man.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Erykah Badu.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like, though, you put Erykah Badu or
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Cam and Mase and it's not your show no more.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: That's fine.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: That's just the one thing about it is you have
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: just hired.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Two executive producers.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Ask Bill O'Reilly about what happens when you make that call.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: Bro, Erykah Badu is one of the low-key, well, it's
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: out now, but she's hilarious. She's one of them people
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: that even for a long time, folks, she would call
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: Ricky Smiley's morning show just to roast Ricky. She wasn't
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: promoting nothing. No concert, no show. I just called to
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: tell Ricky his teeth crooked and I can hear crooked teeth.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: She said something about, I can hear your breath on
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: the radio. How you hear bad breath? Like just, just funny.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Just a funny person.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: She told that academics fella with the long setup that
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: you remind me of somebody. I just can't think of
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: who and let that sit for tens of minutes before
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: coming back around and looking at him and.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Saying, Jerry. Jerry the Mouse. That's who you remind me of.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Jerry the Mouse. What do I do at this point?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Accurate.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Accurate.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: And I will also say this. Erykah Badu can sing
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: and Erykah Badu apparently can do the Badu. having jokes
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: on top of all that is just a little bit unfair.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Like, you are, that fact, you are actually now terrified.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: You know, I've thought about that, though. When they start
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: making hip-hop movies about everything that's happened in this era
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: of hip-hop, which eventually they will, I think I got
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: a good chance to throw my name in the hat
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: to play DJ Academics. I think I could put it off.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: I got a round enough face. I could throw in
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: a hoodie, sit in an off-angle streaming camera.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but don't you need to be like 15 years younger?
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I don't know. First off, now see, now you being disrespectful.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: No, he's not old, is he?
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: He's not 46. Academic's not 46, but he ain't 21.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: I didn't say I play Kai Sinat. Jesus, but my.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: No, I'm saying that as somebody who is the same
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: age as you and views himself as being.
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  Speaker 2: Much older than academic.
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  Speaker 3: You could youth me up. Put the Beijing on me
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: and boom, I'm academics.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Look here.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: I could be 31.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: You know what? I have to apologize.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And the reason I have to apologize is you humbled
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: yourself so much already to be willing to play academics
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  Speaker 1: that I did not need to also be like, you too.
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  Speaker 3: Old for that shit.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: You right. You right. I'm wrong in this situation.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Yo, why? I got to give a shout out to
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay over at Higher Learning, man.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: Why they was asking me what civil rights character I
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: could play. And I couldn't think of it at the time.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: And I said, Dr. King, of course, but the answer
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  Speaker 3: is John Lewis.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: You could do John Lewis.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: You're a little tall to be both of them, either
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: of them, because they was both point guards, scat backs,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: if you will.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: You said Dr. King was Warwick Dunn?
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's kind of where I'm going.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Like, not trending holiday, right? Like, that's going a little
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: bit too far in that direction. But yeah, you know,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: but he had a locker room presence.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's one of those things. First off, I'd
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: never play anything. I think I've been on TV too
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: much to where you know it's me. I can't disappear
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: into a room. Like, real actors go away for months
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: at a time, and you don't see them. And then
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: you see him bald and you'd be like, oh, he
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: must be getting ready to play a bald role. I'm
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: on TV too regularly. It just, I don't know. I
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: don't think I could disappear like that. Okay.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: I can see that. Now, we'll talk about this book.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: And for people, you know what it's about me. If
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: I come in here and I'm holding the book up,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: it's because I actually did read it. I ran through it.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: It is a good read. It is a quick read.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: It is an enlightening read. It is called The Man Unleashed.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: of many fathers. And I have watched many of these
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: interviews with you about this book and I found that
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: many people have gone in that direction, but I have
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: a spin or a thought on what this book is
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: in part. And I'm curious your thoughts before I get
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: to that question, I want to ask this. And if
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: you're not watching on YouTube, you're missing out. I sent
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: this question at your event in New York and you
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: did not answer it. Why are you looking at us
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: like this?
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: Okay. Man, I don't know how to take no picture
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: for no book.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Like, I'm just asking, like, what are we trying to
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: convey with this one right here?
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Well, it's just, hmm, who am I? Do you know
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: who I am? Because every photo, that's a painting by
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: this wonderful black woman, Cashmere Thompson. Yes, I know Cashmere.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: And so Cashmere, I'm like, read the book, and then
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: for each chapter, just do what you think the father
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: would look like. And then I'm going to collage with
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: some of the fathers. Is this me? Which one is me?
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: You do look like somebody daddy.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I do have to say that, that there is a
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: daddy-ish element to what's going on here to bring it
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  Speaker 1: full circle.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: The only thing I knew for sure I didn't want
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: was no sweaters. I don't want to be in no
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: sweater or no book cover doing anything. And then with
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: the fingertip hands, you do this and you're looking. I
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: don't want to do none of that. I don't want
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: to do none of that.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Every time this book had a lot of that I
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: love and what I found myself going back to was
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: a very healthy dose and healthy presentation of back into
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: my day goodness. Like I was struck in going back
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: through this story with you to being when you're very
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: small and going all the way up of the ways
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that we lived and how different they are from the
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: life that your son will live. This book is kind
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: of a letter to your son about life you think
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: you tied a hossy coats in this motherfucker right and
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: so like when you get back to like the ways
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: that kids played in the streets and the things that
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: we did it was like oh yeah we used to
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: do that and one thing i thought that was interesting
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: is you made reference and used the term latchkey about
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: your upbringing and i look at it and i'm like
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: damn mine kind of was too and i thought that
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: was the coolest part of growing up like we we.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Was out here making moves making it.
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  Speaker 3: Happen grown adult decisions. And it wasn't even until I
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: wrote the book and I really reflected on when I
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: went to Clarksdale every summer. My mama sent me to
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: Clarksdale for two months to be with my grandma and
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: my aunties. We never saw adults until late in the afternoon, bro.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: Like just didn't see. My aunt Rose would make breakfast.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: She would leave and go to work. My grandma at
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: the house, my grandma sleep most of the afternoon. We'd
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: come back in about one o'clock, get food, And then
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: be back out the door. And we would be outside. Like,
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: you'd see the postman at 2. And then the mosquito
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: truck would spin the block about 4, 430. And that
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: was it. Unless my Uncle Derek came by to make
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: a plate. And he was the dog catcher. And he
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: would bring a dog. And my uncle would have the
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: same dog in the truck all day to make it
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: look like he working. Then free the dog at the
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: end of his shift.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: So he could go catch him again.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: Catch him again tomorrow. Church's chicken wing and a honey biscuit.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: That dog be right there waiting on it on time. Yo,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: animals can tell time. They gotta feel it. Cause he
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: knew when my uncle was coming around that corner and
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: he'd happily get in that truck, fresh cold water. chicken
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: and a biscuit. Yeah, I'm riding with you all day,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: big dog. It's you and me.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: But I was just thinking, all the advice that you
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: give is so interesting because the time is such a
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: character in this book. And the setup of the book
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: is you talking about different men in your life that
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you've met, right?
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and gained some wisdom. Yeah, it's like either... By
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: learning from what you did or what you did not do.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: This was a concept, man.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Like I thought the idea of how to do that,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of course, like starting with your mother and then working
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: all the way around is it really is so much
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: game that you pick up in this world off these
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: small moments with people that don't necessarily realize that they
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: really did it. And a big part of it, and
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about this kind of first is
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: overarching thing is I think about is the importance where
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: I think you and I grew up with similar parents, though,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: in a different class dynamic, right? Like, I never had
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: to go get money to pay no bills, which is
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: something that you talk about here. However, being the child
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: of learned parents comes with a certain exposure that you
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: wind up having and an expectation of what life is
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: going to be that is largely due to that. And
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: where you really start learning about the world is if
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: you can get you a job as a teenager... It
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: is your first foray into actual factual adulthood because you're
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: not a teenager when you're on the clock. You were
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: there and like now you are a child among men,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: but we're all men. Yeah.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: And I'm going to talk to you like a man.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: I'm going to treat you like a man. Sometimes I'm
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: going to slap you across the face like a man.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: And that's just what it's going to be. And you go, oh, wow,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: this is nothing like dealing with my scout master or
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: the youth pastors or All these, the camp council, all
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: these people who's supposed to legitimately care about my upbringing
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: and matriculation into the world. No, your coworker don't care.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: Your coworker don't care in the least, bro. I used
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: to work with Cats at Subway. They come to work crying.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: And I'm 16, and I know I'm supposed to ask you, well,
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: what's wrong? Hey, man, it's a line out the door, dog.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: I work the subway by UAB Hospital. Do you understand
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: the lunch rush at a hospital location of any food establishment?
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: A sandwich shop in particular because everybody likes sandwiches.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: And they ordering for the whole floor. Every nurse got
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: eight sandwiches. You got the little sheet where everybody wrote down,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: I want a six inch with bell peppers first, then
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: the mustard on top of the bell. And you in
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: the corner crying because your wife finna divorce you. I'm sorry,
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: but also I need you to come fix these sandwiches, bro.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: But then that taught me the importance of choosing the
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: right person. Cause I can see how, especially in standup comedy, man,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: I've seen how choosing the wrong partner can pollute so
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: many different layers of your existence, man. That is not
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: good at all. So it just became this path of,
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: all right, let me write about some of these folks.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: And like, if I made the decisions, my son is
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: born and I make a decision, All right, if I
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: pass before he's old enough for us to have some
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: grown man conversations over cognac, let me write some things
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: down for him. And the more I started writing, I
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: was kind of looking at, well, why do I believe that? Why? Okay,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: don't have a good partner.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Well, what were some examples of bad partners? Yo, remember
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: that time he was at that dude's house and his
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: wife cussed him out? And then y'all went to do
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: the gig and the gig canceled. And then he started
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: crying because he knew his wife was going to cuss
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: him out even more. Yeah, that's probably a good story
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: to tell. And so it just started becoming this long
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: word document. And the more I looked at it, bro,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: the more I just felt like, all right, this is
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: a book. So let me just start putting this together
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: and then figuring out what to cut. That was the
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: biggest battle was how much of, my childhood, because I'm
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: my mama's only child. I'm the ninth of 11 kids
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: by my dad. So I ain't get a full 100%
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: present father. Pops was an OG and a veteran in
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: the journalism community. His contributions to Black America through the microphone, Wikipedia, that,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: it's a journey. And there's plenty of paragraphs to read.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: He earned every syllable of praise. But also, Sometimes you
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: ain't come home. So on the days you ain't come
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: home and if a bill needed to be paid and
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: the bill wasn't paid because you was the breadwinner with
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: an eye, well then I got to go out here
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: and work. I'm 13. I'm working 30 hours a week.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: I'm raking leaves. I'm sweeping parking lots at convenience stores.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: Like any hustle I can come up with in the
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: neighborhood that ain't dope, I'm on it. We washing cars.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Like I wish I'd have known about dog walking back then.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: That ain't really something you see in the hood that
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: much anyway. Cause everybody got a yard and the dog just,
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: just shit in the yard. But I would have, man,
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: I would have done that. I would have washed animals, like,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: like anything. And it's weird because like, like I want to,
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: you tell me if this is a good idea. Like
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: I really want to do a scholarship for C students.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: And I don't know the best way to go about
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: setting that up because I was a C student in
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: high school. I had a two, two. Out of high school.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: Matter of fact, at the second lowest GPA in my
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: high school, the dude below me had been expelled. So
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: you get pulled to the side by your principal when
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: you 16, 17, and you need to quit walking these
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: halls and blah, blah, blah. And I'd already peeped game.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: I knew if I killed an ACT, none of this
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: shit y'all talking about in class day to day matters.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to go get this 25 right quick
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: on this ACT. I know any black college would be
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: happy to have me with a 25. It'll offset the
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: GPA because you can't explain why are you a C student? Well,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: because my parents be beefing sometimes and sometimes bills don't
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: get paid. So I work beyond the Alabama fucking child
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: labor law guidelines to make sure that there's heat in
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: the house. So yeah, I didn't do Ms. Shaw's American
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: History Project last night. My bad. So this idea of
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: work ethic, and everybody will say it like, when you grown, right?
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: People will go, oh, you got a work ethic, man.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: You a hustler. You a grinder and always grind. But
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: when I really stopped to look and reflect on why,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: is it work ethic or is it a trauma response?
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: So now, now that you've discovered that about yourself, is
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: work ethic something you really want to pass down to
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: your child? And if so, why and how? Because now
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: you have to teach work ethic without inducing trauma. And
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: that becomes the challenge as a parent is trying to
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: figure out how to give them the things that made
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: you you, that you benefit from, but that were triggered
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: by something negative. You understand? Like, how do you create
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: a positive impulse for a positive life trait? I don't know.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: All I can do is write a book and go,
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: hey man, I worked real hard because there was a
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: time in my life where if I didn't work real hard,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: might've been hungry, lights might've been off, sleeping fully clothed
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: in a cold ass house. So I just never wanted
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: that for myself. So I just always work hard because
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: I don't trust that anything is going to be... I
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: left The Daily Show. We talked about this before. I
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: was like, I don't trust this shit. Y'all got a
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: merger coming. You don't know who the host is going
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: to be. I know I'm not going to be the host,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: so I don't know if the new host is going
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: to choose me. Man. I love y'all, but let me
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: go figure out something else. This is the time to
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: figure it out because there's an election coming. Oh, CNN?
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: Y'all want to do something? Perfect timing. It's always worked out, bro.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: But I just think dissecting why there's certain pieces of
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: me are me. It's important for my son to understand why.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: I don't want him to just grow up and go,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: my dad was always a hard worker and he was
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: always going. That's why I'm a hard worker. Slow down.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Let's look at it.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I can give you some insight on that one because
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: What struck me as I was hearing you talk about
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: that was I remember getting my first like actual factual
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: job and I was just trying to stack a little
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: money to save up for the prom without having to
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: get that money from my parents because I hadn't understood it.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: All the people I went to high school with had
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: jobs because that's what they had to do to get money.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: And my parents wouldn't give me no money. So it's like, oh,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: you go get a job. This is how it works.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: But what I didn't fully appreciate until I started working
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the job. They basically had hired me at this job
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: at Fuddruckers Busting Tables because they would try to run
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: this one woman off the job. She was not saving
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: for the prom. She had a 10-year-old. You understand what
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I'm saying? And I went in there one week and
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: they gave me 35 hours. I had just started that job.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: They gave me 35 hours. And she used to be
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: real sour to me. And I didn't really understand this
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: until it dawned on me. You are trying to use
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: me to fire this woman. At which point I fully realized, oh,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: these are what the stakes are for people that are
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: out here having jobs. And then Had that day where
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: the line went out the door and they had sent
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: everybody home on the floor except for me.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: And I almost died. I really almost died.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And that was the day that I realized, oh, the
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: work ethic was developed because I understood.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: I now understood what the rules were. You know what
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: I mean?
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Like, that's what I was thinking as I was reading
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: you talking about, like, having all these jobs and how
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: your perspective was very often different from the people who
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: work these jobs. But having those jobs, I took that
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: less as you having a trauma response than you were
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: informed by the people that you were around. This is
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: actually how the world works, no matter what you thought
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: before you got here.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: These are the stakes.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah. But then also working those jobs, it's like, OK,
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: I know that this is not what I want to
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: keep doing forever. By having that as an example, like
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: you work, man. So when I used to travel, so
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: did I ever tell you how I discovered day labor?
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I think I read it in the book, but I
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: don't think you told me.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think I told that part in the book.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: I talked about working day labor in the book, but
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: the first time I ever worked day labor. All right.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: So you're not even had a fundraisers for like the
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: candy and the Katie dids and the chocolate turtles and
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: all of that. So my high school ROTC unit, we
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: were selling the candies. And you sell candy for three
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: months and you collect money. And then after three months,
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: you turn all the money in. And then two months later,
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: the candy come and you give it out to everybody
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: to order the candy. Bro, folks, my mama's friends, they're
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: paying me. They give me like $ 20 here, $ 15 there.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: I got like $ 300 in the house that's supposed to
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: be for the candy. Man, I wouldn't have spent that shit.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: I don't even remember what I bought. I know I
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: went to Century Plaza Mall and I went to, there
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: was a store called Sports Fantasy. And you're not like
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: small cities, like smaller cities in the South. You only
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: had one store that had out of town sports memorabilia
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: in the 90s. Like you wasn't going to get a
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Dolphins chalk line jacket anywhere but Sports Fantasy. And the
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: idea of ordering out a catalog, that was just too
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: much trouble. Man, I bought a Dolphins chalk line jacket
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: and the next day my sergeant moved up the deadline
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: to turn in the money by three weeks. You motherfucker.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: And so I had to go and start working daily work,
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: daily paid jobs immediately after high school. As soon as
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: I leave work, so now I'm working night jobs. Any
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: job after dark, For day labor, you wish you was
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: working construction or cutting grass. You cleaning trash cans. You
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: spraying out trash trucks. You, the grease truck. Oh my God, bro.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: So like, you know, every fast food spot got the,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: there's a dumpster and then there's a grease. Like when
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: you take the deep fryer grease, that goes in a
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: separate thing, separate from the dumpster. clean all the concrete
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: around that real quick, big dog. And then I'm going
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: to need you to go inside and we're going to
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: do a deep clean on all these deep fries. And
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: it's a school night. I know you work until one
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: in the morning. It's cool. Your mama really don't, you know,
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: she know you out. You just say you working late
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: and you had a double shift. She don't like it,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: but what's she going to do? You going to come
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: get me? You ain't going to come to the job
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: and get me. You got to get up for work.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: So man, it was like, working those jobs, being around
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: those dudes, grown men in their 40s. And it's like,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: for them, this is life. And it's an honest day's work.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: But I know you did not choose dump grease trap
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: from back of Wendy's when you was 18, when they
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: made you write in your yearbook what you want to
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: be one day. So I just never wanted that for myself.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: And being around those types of people, it was like these...
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: like reverse, reverse inspiration. Cause I'm just around somebody with
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: this is just sad. I don't want to keep doing this.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: What do I need to do to not do to
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: get back in fam you and graduate that.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you, I got lucky and I'm a
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: say this for the other side.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Um, I have a story.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: My brother has that is right in line with what
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: you were talking about. We've mentioned that in just a moment.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: All right, we are back with Roy Wood Jr., the
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: man of many fathers. That is the book. Go check
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: that out. And my brother tells this story.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: I got lucky. I got an older brother. He's 13
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: years older than me. So he caught a lot of
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: L's that I did not have to catch.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's nice. That's like having an assistant daddy.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, that is exactly what it is, right? It is
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: somebody at the perfect midpoint who also, you know, was
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: learning some of these lessons the hard way, shall we say, right?
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: And so I remember he had graduated from college and
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: he had gotten some job. He didn't, that wasn't working
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason. And so he's at the crib. And,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: you know, my mom was not feeling this at all.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Right. He's at the crib. So he got to do
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: something with himself.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: And so he goes and he gets a job at
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: the Home Depot. And at that time, my brother was
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: a pretty big dude and he's young. So, you know,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: what they given him, they given him the job that
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you got to.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Put the back brace on.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: To do those things.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: But, you know, in the end, he is a college
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: graduate who is working at the Home Depot. And at
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: some point while he's working at the Home Depot, he
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: said one of the old heads came over. And this
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: is very similar to a story that Roy tells in
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: his book. So when the old heads come over and
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: it's like, hey, man, let me talk to you for
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a second. It's like, look, man, I see you and
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I can tell you smart. And the managers, they know
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: you smart, too. But let me tell you something. That attitude,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: you keep acting like that.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: And you ain't never going to make it to aisle manager.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: And my brother had.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Never really set any goals for his path at the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Home Depot. And the idea that there was upward mobility
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: in this was a sign to him that it was
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: time to do something with his life.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: I'm washing lettuce soon as fries. Then it's front counter.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: That's when the big.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Bucks started rolling in. Just a couple years, huh?
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: There's something that happens in a moment and there's no
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: way to put it but where you realize this is
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: not my journey.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I am here right now, but there is a path that.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Goes with this that I am not going down. And
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: somebody will come to you and be like, hey, man,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: you know, you're on the right track for really making
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: it in this place.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: And it makes you go, oh, hey, buddy.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah. But then I have people like that in my
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: life who said it to me like that. And then
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: people also in my life who showed it to me
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: by dying or going back to prison. You know, the
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: idea of being on the straight and narrow and being
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: around people who are on the straight and narrow and
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: then seeing people get knocked off, you know, I worked
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: at Golden Corral, and I talk about it a little
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: bit in the book about how, and this was something
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: that also wasn't until I sat down and really looked
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: at it, and I was like, damn, man. Golden Corral
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: was the first time I really felt like forgiveness was
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: possible after I got arrested. And not only that, I
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: learned that you have to forgive yourself when you've made
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: a mistake. Because society wants you to live in apology
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: and everybody sets a different bar for what they deem
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: is an acceptable amount of atonement for you to have
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: offered up. How much? A pound of flesh. Somebody want
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: a pound and a half. Then who are you? So
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: being around, you know, I go to Golden Corral after
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: I steal his credit card. I'm on probation. And Golden
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: Corral is my first job while I'm on probation. And
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: I think I'm going to get fired when my PO
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: finally has to come up and do the in-store visit
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: to verify that you work there. And I'm in that
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: bitch nervous because I lied on the application. I'm like,
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Hey man, I have never been, I have never, I'm
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: a good server though, son. And I've been in there
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: four months, four or five months. And I'm killing it.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Everybody loves me. I'm cracking jokes on the floor. I'm helping.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: I'm doing other people's side. I'm one of them servers
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: where I'll do your side work for you because you
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: got set late when you're supposed to be doing your side.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: I'll clean your salt and pepper shake. Man, my PO
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: came in that thing, man, and I was so nervous
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: because you just feel like, all right, they gone. This
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: is the bull. Come to find out, that half the
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: store was on probation because Golden Corral had an owner
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: who believed in giving second chances to people with convictions.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: Not only was I not in trouble, bro, my manager
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: was thrilled that I was on probation because it meant
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: they could get a back tax credit for the four
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: months I had already been working there. He was like, oh,
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: this is great. And I got enveloped in warmth by
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: all of these cats in the back who had also
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: made mistakes but were committed. to having a different outcome
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: in their life. And so they stayed on me. They
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: checked on me. And you think that you are surrounded
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: by people who are intent on doing better. But all
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: they said, all one of them said was, I'm never
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: going back to jail. And so when someone tells you
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: they're never going back to jail, the assumption is, I
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: intend to live a wholesome life. No. Died in a
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: shootout with the Tallahassee police. And that's something that was
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: just jarring at the time. Because it's like, oh, oh,
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: you weren't necessarily saying that on a positive. You were
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: saying you were so intent on living right. that if
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: it ever comes to you having to go back to prison,
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: you would choose death. And he slipped up, police came
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: to get him, and he left with a body bag.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: And you think about people like that, and you go,
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: all right, well, whatever was in prison that he experienced
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: that made him choose a shootout over going back to that,
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: I don't ever want to learn what that is. So
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: let me go and get this degree right quick. Let
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: me go and get this degree. That lesson is as
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: impactful as any big brother, big sister or any one
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: of my mama's college friends who go, hey Roy, you
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: need to get your education. Yeah, because that's what happened
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: when I was on probation. My mama had all these
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: alphas and q-dogs coming by the house my mama had
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: all these you know them big muscular frat brothers you
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: know they show up in them in them tight t-shirts
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: look i love divine nine but all y'all t-shirts be
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: too tight hey roy what's going on brother Your mama
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: say you down there in Tallahassee messing up.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: What's happening?
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Need to get that education straight. So that helped. But
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: the lesson of my coworker who feared prison so much
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: in the institution of incarceration to the point of making
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: that choice of death, that's impactful. And I have to
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: acknowledge that. And that has to be documented. And that
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: has to be something that for my son to be
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: able to consume and see at some point. But you know,
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: that store, like Golden Corral is also like to a
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: large part, bro, this ain't in the book. I'm just
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: talking to you now. But like, that's why I don't
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: really like rock with cancel culture in a way that
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of other people do. Because I
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: spent a year with people just trying to cancel me. And,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: you know, I made this mistake and I'm suspended from
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: school at this point. They wanted to expel me from FAMU,
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: but my pops used to teach there. My mama graduated there.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: So it was enough people within the administration where, all right,
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: we're going to work some strings. Look, we got to
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: sit you down for a year. But when you come back,
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: We can get you back in the fold. And even
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: when I got back in school, I wasn't allowed to
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: do anything. Like I was on every form of, it's
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: not just academic probation. I forget what the other probation
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: is called in college, but it's the one where you
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: can't do shit. Like you just go to class. That's
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: all you can do. You can go to class. You
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: can go to the library. You can go to the bookstore.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: That's it. You can't go to no games. You can't
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: go to no tailgate. You can't go to no party. Oh,
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: ESPN is on the set doing college game day, but
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: take your ass home. You can't pledge nothing. You can't
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: play intramural, nothing like straight up. Just, I had to
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: get an exemption to do, to write for the campus
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: paper when I got back in school, because that was
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: pertinent to my degree. But during that time, there was a, um,
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: there was a bomber, I can Google his name, I
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: think it was Lawrence Lombardi, but there was a bomber,
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: there was a terrorist leaving pipe bombs around the campus
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: of Florida A & M University. And this is like
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: peak black church bombings, late 90s, early 2000s, when that
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: type of intimidation, that type of terroristic intimidation was happening
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: to black folks. And they're trying to catch this bomber.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: Like every, like once or twice a week, a pipe
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: bomb is blowing up on FAMU's campus somewhere in the bathroom.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Nobody's getting hurt, but you never know. The next one
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: might be the one. Bro, the FBI came to the
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: campus and started rounding up students out of the classrooms.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: Straight come in the classroom. We're looking for Sergeant Roy
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Wood Jr. coming out in the hall. And you're getting
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: questioned by the feds on whether or not you're a
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: terroristic threat to the university that you paying money to,
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: by the way, why would I bomb this shit and
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: still be in class? Like the idea of being suspected
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: for that because I'm on behavioral probation with the school
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: and then students in the hallway seeing who was questioned
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: And now you got people pulling your paperwork and sending
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: your paperwork on the low back to the campus paper,
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: back to the Tallahassee Democrat to try and get articles
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: written about you to get you expelled. Sending articles to
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: the professors who teach you, trying to get them to
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: give you an F. Sending articles to the deans of
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: your apartment, sending your arrest paperwork to the head of
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: your department to try and get you expelled. And then
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: you couple that with at the time, I had one
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: or two friends, but I was not cool no more.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: I got arrested. I was the plug for two years.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: I was the dude. Cheap food, cheap PlayStation games, cheap clothes,
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: whatever you needed, I got it. Anything but drugs, which
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: ironically is what I almost call my business.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Anything but dope.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: Anything but drugs. And so you're socially ostracized. And even
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: if I wanted to hang on campus, I can't because
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: it's a literal violation of my re-enrollment. So you are
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: alone and you are on an island and you are
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: surrounded by people who want to do nothing but remind
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: you that you're the sum of your mistake. And that's
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: not the truth. So Golden Corral was the first spot
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: when I got back out into the world that embraced that,
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: that embraced me. It's like, yeah, you made a mistake.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: So have we. And here's how we keep from making
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: mistakes again. And it gave me this sense of, well,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: fuck y'all, to everybody else that was still judging me.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: And I got to a place where you have this
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: realization that you don't need other people's permission to be
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: a better person. I don't need you to forgive me.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: I've forgiven me. And I've set forth a path. And
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: you will look and observe as I walk this path.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: And let that be the testament of whether or not
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: you think I'm a decent person now. But this idea
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: of doing any type of permanent song or dance in
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: the moment when people hate you, you're never going to
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: get them folks back on your side. But, you know,
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: it's love now. And I'm not trashing the university. I'm
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: just telling you what the state of affairs was with
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: particular people within the school. You know, the FBI is
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: the FBI. They just going to always harass. But The
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: idea of there being people who didn't want to forgive me,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: you know, that hurt at the time. But what I
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: didn't realize is that I never needed their approval to
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: make better choices. I just started making better choices.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I will say this, and I've known you for about
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: 10 years now, and I knew about the story that
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: involved you getting arrested. I don't think I realized how
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: close you were to doing like actual factual time.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: Five years. I was told five years. Expect to do
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: three year and a half good behavior. I go to
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: court that day. It was a different judge because the
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: other judge was out and I got probation. No clue why. No,
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: could not tell you anything. My lawyer was just as
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: shocked as me. My lawyer damn near mumbled under his breath, Mr. Wood,
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: we'll give you probation. You bullshit.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, it also doesn't sound like something you should
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: get actual factual time for, but... It sounded like it
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: was actual, factual time.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: You have to remember, though, this is a different Tallahassee
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: at this time. This is the 90s. At that time,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: at that time, the murder rate, Tallahassee averaged less than
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: 10 murders a year, maybe five or six. I think
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: they're well over, they're in their 50s now. It's become
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: a lot worse. But at that time, anytime you catch
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: a young black teenager, I'm 19, oh, we got one.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: And then honestly, like what CD murder say probation for
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: 10 years don't mean you free it's more people on
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: papers than in prison so honestly that is just a
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: setup to get you tripped up back into the because
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: now you have to keep a job well what if
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: your car break down and you in a city with
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: a terrible local transportation How do you keep your job?
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: You don't. That's a violation. Come on back to jail,
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: big dog. Got to have gainful employment. Got to have
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: a gainful place of residence. Can't live with no felon.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: So if you live with one, you got to move out.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: Can't find nowhere to live because you ain't got no job.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: You can't get first last month. And I don't want
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: you staying here because you a felon. I don't know
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: what kind of trouble you're bringing. So now you can't
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: find nowhere to live. That's a violation. Come on back
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: to jail, big dog. So, you know, yeah, I was, bro,
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: my house was packed. I did what my lawyer told
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: me to do. He said, get your affairs in order.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: I had six months. So here's how it happened. I
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: get arrested Thanksgiving of 98. I go to an open
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: mic that December. January comes around and I plead guilty.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: Sentencing is in June. Because I pled guilty, I get
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: suspended from school because I stole the credit card from
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: the campus post office where I had a work study.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: So because I committed a crime on campus, violation of
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: student code, you're officially suspended from the school. That's January.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: Top of February comes. I get a financial aid check for.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: $ 7, 000.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: For classes I'm no longer taking. And I'm going to
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: prison in June. Bo, I was out that bitch like
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: Brewster's Millions. I have What does this matter? I'm going
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: to prison. So I like doing comedy. It's the one
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: thing I enjoy. I got this job at Golden Corral
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: just to mess around until I go to jail. Just
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: some way to get out the house for 20 hours
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: a week. I'm going to just use this money and
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: just ride the bus and go do open mics all
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: over the South. That's what I want to do. So
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: that's what I'm going to do. And that's what I did.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: I worked at Golden Corral and I rode the bus
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: every week. And then June came and dude gave me probation.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: And then September came and family let me back in school.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: And then December came and my mama bought me a
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: car because she found out I was sleeping in the
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: bus station. And that's how the career started. And it
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: sucks that it takes hitting a bottom like that to go,
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: all right, what was that thing I really wanted to
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: do when I was 13? All right, I'm going to
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: do that. I should try that now at 19. Man,
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: I was 13, bro. I didn't even know Birmingham had
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: a comedy club. Not only did it have a comedy club,
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: it's to this day one of the most premier clubs
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: in the country. And people think, oh, Birmingham. Birmingham was
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: part of the stand-up boom in the 80s. And there's
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: flyers on the wall that the comedy club starred on, bro.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: Steve Harvey, MC, Seinfeld feature act, headliner Sinbad. Like, just
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: murderous rogue. of just comedy. And I just was never,
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: we never went to that side of town. Did you
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: ever just not go to the white side of town
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: till it was shopping season? Like, just trying to get
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: back to school?
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: I lived on it.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: But my friends who did not would act like they
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: were going to bars when they were coming to our house.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, bro, we never went to Hoover. We never went
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: to the suburbs.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, you asked that thing too.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Houston wasn't quite apartheid out, quite like the Alabama, Mississippi situation.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Birmingham was like, all you Negroes, you know?
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: And we call it over the mountain in Birmingham. You
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: have to literally go over a mountain, and then there's Whiteville.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: So the idea of even knowing, not knowing, like, here's
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: a thing I'm curious about, and I don't know anything
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: about it, and I didn't even feel comfortable sharing it
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: with my parents. So... when you take that lesson and
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: you flip it as a father, well, I'm on my
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: son's face. What you like, bro? What you want to do?
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: He mumble anything. We're going to read about it. We're
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: going to learn about it. And eventually we're going to
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: go and try and do something tactile with it. You
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: in the aviation? Cool. We're going to hit all these museums.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: All right. You got a little interest in that? You
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: still got interest? All right. Cool. Let's play around with
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: some VR flight simulator. You still like that? All right. Cool.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Let's see if I can get a plug. Like I
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: didn't really take, yo, I've tapped in to like, man,
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: Black College Alumni Networks, man. I'm so blessed, bro. Like,
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: I got a friend. I saw you had a picture
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: with your son touching the airplane wing on your Instagram
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: from three years ago. My homeboy, he works air traffic
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: control in Chicago. If you ever want to go in
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: the air traffic control tower at O'Hare. And I'm like, yeah.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: And so the idea of, his dreams will get watered.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: Or you would at least know what the world has
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: to offer so that lack of knowledge, because your parents
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: just had their heads down trying to work, that's not
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: going to be the reason that your progress is impeded.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: What would my life have been if I knew that
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: comedy club was out there? Or if I just shared
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: it with my mom? Hey, I like watching, she'd come
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: home and see me watching Comedy Central and imitating Eddie Murphy,
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: imitating Sinbad. We'd watch George Wallace. We could watch George
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: Wallace and Sinbad. Who knows? I don't think Sinbad get
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: enough credit either, man. That man did a live primetime
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: comedy special on network television with commercial breaks. That is
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: the most wildest shit. Like for all of this, I'm
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: live on Netflix. Cool, but can you do comedy and
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: perfectly time a four-minute commercial break in the middle of
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: your comedy, which means you're still doing comedy while the
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: commercials are airing, and when we come back from commercials,
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: merge perfectly back into a new bit that the people
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: watching at home didn't see?
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, man, Sinbad was the top of the marquee star
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: of the number two TV show in America.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: It is very easy to forget that.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: That man, yo, I grew up watching him, and that was...
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: That was like the impetus for like, oh, what is
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: this comedy thing? But I just buried it. You just
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: put it in your back pocket because you don't think
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: anybody cares about your dream. You think your dream don't matter.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: You think it's too massive of a mountain to climb.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: So you just don't pursue it. So for me, it
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: took having everything almost taken away from me for me
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: to get to that place. But then from that, going
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: through that thought process, you go, okay, how do I
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: make sure my son doesn't walk around unaware of whatever
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: his comedy club is. And that's to talk to them.
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: That's to have interactions with your kids. That's to see
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: what they're interested in and try and learn it. Be
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: a part of it. And then maybe they'll share the
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: next thing. Man, I got to learn Spanish and the
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: fucking trombone this year. Just so I can be close
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: to this boy. And I'm going to do it. And
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: then you gonna watch, in two years, I'm gonna be
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: the first trombone comic. I'm gonna be up there, the
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: way them, they be playing the piano and the guitar
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: on stage, I'm gonna have a whole ass trombone.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you something, bro.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: It wasn't that easy for me to tell people when
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: I was finishing school that I wanted to start writing
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: about music and stuff. I can't imagine running up on
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: people being like, I'm about to go tell these jokes.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: Don't worry, it'll be fine.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: You can't, like, and even when I had it under control,
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: my mom was still like, eh. Because when I graduated college,
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: I had no choice but to keep doing stand-up because
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: I couldn't get no internship in journalism because of the conviction.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: But it didn't matter because I was always doing stand-up.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: So I graduated college. My projection for 2001 was I
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: was going to make 17.5 doing stand-up. I had two
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: job offers that were gonna pay 14. So I go
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: to my mom and I go, look, let me move
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: back in with you. I'm gonna make 17 this year.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: If I don't make more money the following year, let
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: me stay with you up to three years. All I
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: need is three years and I think I can get
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: this stand up money to 60,000. I've done the math.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: I do Merck. I'm 17 this year. I should be 25.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: That should go to 40. And then it should be 60.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: And I moved out the next year. I was making
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: almost 50K. I was driving hella far to make it,
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: but I was making enough to pay for a $ 525
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: a month townhouse of Alford Avenue, which was almost over
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: the mountain. It's at the top of the mountain, right
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: before you come down in the Whiteville. It was like
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: the perfect, you're almost there, negro. You're almost there.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: It was like, it was like eggshell. It was like cream.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah. But yeah, I would get on the road. man.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: I would work day labor in cities. I would donate plasma,
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: which is just weird. I don't know if you've ever
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: been in a room with people giving up fluids for money.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: No, man, I've just driven past the plasma joint, man.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: I went somewhere once where the Goodwill was right next
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: to the plasma. And it was the saddest parking lot
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: I'd ever seen in my life.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man. The plasma parking lot looked like a truck
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: stop with no trucks. It's everybody in an unwashed hoodie.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: In the past, every damn time. But you get $ 75
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: for an hour, bro. That's what they was paying in Tallahassee.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: $ 75 for an hour. All you got to do is
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: sit here for an hour, do this with your arm,
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: They give you a little squeezy. And I'm just sitting
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: there reading homework.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: I ain't going to lie. If I knew you could
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: get 75 for it, I might have tried it myself.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: And I ain't even really need the money.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: You can only do it twice a week, though. So
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: it ain't a super lit.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 75 at a time, though, big dog.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: I was hurting them. Well, that's why I went multiple
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: times and passed out. Because I was putting the makeup
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: on my hand. In those days, when you donated plasma,
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: they stamped your hand UV ink. So you had to
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: put your hand under the light and then they would
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: keep track. But what they didn't keep track of, the
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: two different plasma centers didn't communicate with each other. There
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: was no centralized computer to say, hey, he already donated
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: across town. The UV stamp was strictly for that location.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: So Monday, I hit the one on Tennessee Street. And
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: then Tuesday, I hit the joint on Duval Street. Wednesday,
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: go back to Tennessee, donate again. And then passed out.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: I read that part in the book and I was like,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: this dude really tried to hit him for lick number
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: three on the plasma.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because what you do, you would put concealer makeup
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: on your hand on Monday so that when they stamp
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: your hand on Monday, the concealer will wipe the UV
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: ink right off. So it's like Monday's donation never happens.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: So when I go in Tuesday and they UV me,
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: it's not there. So now that's technically the first donation
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: by their account. And then when I go back Wednesday
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: to the Crosstown location that I went on Monday and
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: they know I was there on Monday, as you can see,
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: I still have my UV ink. But the UV you
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: see is really from the Crosstown UV stamp. I feel
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: like we could do a whole scamming episode. There's so
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: much untapped mischief that I was unable to get to.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: You're trying to get somebody else. You got to send
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: somebody else to jail.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Nah, most of my scams, they shut down real fast.
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: You know, my first hustle was fake funeral programs, right? Continue.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: Continue.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: So I flunked a class. Well, I overslept for a
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: midterm freshman year. I see you shifting in your seat.
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: They can't take the degree from me now. I got it.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: No, I wasn't shifted.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: I was just, I'm curious where this was going to go.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: They can't take the degree from me. is mine. So
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: I overslept for a class and the professor was like,
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: where were you? And it just came out my mouth.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: I just got back in town from a funeral. He go, oh,
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: that's easy. All you have to do is just provide
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: the funeral programs to the dean's office and they'll give
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: you an excuse and you can come back and make
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: up the test. And I went, yes, sir. I went
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: back to the dorm. I opened up Microsoft Word. I
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: made me a funeral program. I went on AOL Personals,
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: found a picture of some black lady in the 70s
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: who was looking for love. Right click, save image as,
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: and then copy image. Drop that JPEG into Microsoft Word, dot,
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: print that four-page doc, take that to FedEx office, Kinko's
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: at the time, have them reduce it to the proper
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: size where it fits on one sheet of paper, and
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: then you put it on some of that cream-colored marble
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: paper with the wavy lines. It's like light brown with
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: the cream streaks in it, the good emotional paper. You
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: print a funeral program on that. Make sure your name
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: is somewhere in the list of surviving relatives. Take that
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: program back to your dean. As you can see, I
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: was at a funeral. I would like to make up
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: my test, please. And I did. And nobody thought that
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: it would work. And it did. And I made up
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: my midterm and flunked that bitch.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, I love that you said
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: nobody thought it would work, but it did.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: Nobody thought we could do it, but we believed.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: Everybody was teasing me because I was bragging about it.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: You know, you brag about it. Yeah, man, I made
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: up my mind. And then somebody came to me a
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: week later. Hey, man, you think you can make me
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: one of them funeral programs? And I'm like, of course,
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: good sir, for $ 20. For the low, low price. So
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: I made one for this dude, and it worked for him.
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: And somebody else came to me. And they didn't want
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: to pay $ 20. And they went to somebody else who
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: said they'll do it for $ 10. I refused to fold
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: on my price. The brother who was doing them for
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: $ 10 was making a mint. He was making like $ 7,
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: $ 8 a week. And the problem, though, was that he
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: was never changing the picture on the programs. And so
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: now you have somebody making fake funeral programs, but it's
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: the same dead person in every program. So if you
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: got two students in the same major going to the
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: same dean to get an excuse, you're going to recognize it.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: All of a sudden, it's just a wave of dead
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: grandmamas sweeping the campus. How long do you think that
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: scam lasts? About two and a half weeks. They shut
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: that shit down so fast. Fam, you ain't stupid. And
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: I don't know what the rule is now on campus,
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: but at the time, the rule was changed to like, yeah,
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: the funeral program has to be mailed directly from your mama.
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: Got to mail this to the dean. before you even
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: get in. Don't come in here with that. We don't
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: trust that no more. You know, funeral program got to
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: be signed by a notary.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: Like there's always a lag, right?
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: Between the new hustle and people getting up on game.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: But there's always, like you said, not stupid people.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: There will be a lag, but it will be caught.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: And one of you will be the first person to
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: be the first example of the new world order.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, bro. I literally... I literally, that was the first
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: hustle and I flunked. And you'd think that should have
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: been a sign from God. Just, hey man, scamming ain't
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: for you. Just don't do that.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: Hey man, you think it can't happen to you?
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: Then it do. But yeah, man, it's a blessing, man.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: It's a blessing to be on the other side of
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: this and just have some degree of awareness. All I
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: want people to do with this book, man, is if
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: you're like me and you feel like you loved and
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: appreciated your father, but there were things that you wish
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: you hadn't, there's things you wish you had gotten from
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: your dad, but you didn't get them. You gotta let
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: go of that. Whatever you're feeling because of that, you
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: gotta let go of it. And if you really take
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: a minute and reflect on your life, you'll see all
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: of the people that God put in your path who
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: planted seeds in you. Take them seeds. and plant those
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: ideas in your child. And then you guarantee to have
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: a child who doesn't grow up to be like your dad.
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: It's simple.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Man of Many Fathers, available where all five books are sold.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: It is a really good book for you to check out.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: I highly recommend it.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: I checked it out.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Before we got on here. My brother, you did good
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: work on this one, man. So I appreciate you joining
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: us here with this.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: And best of luck.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: You know, we went, me, Dominique, and Goff, we went
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: and pulled up to your live show the other night.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying?
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: Good times, man. Yeah. Yeah, we on tour too, man.
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: The book is baked into the price. So we going
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: to a bunch of cities. Roywoodjrbook.com. Find out all that information, man.
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: I appreciate it, y'all, man. I just wish y'all would
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: come chop it up before the show backstage.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Well, but the problem is, and I be forgetting this
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: stuff about you don't be telling nobody that you're doing nothing,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: and then Dominique don't think to tell you that.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: We gonna be there.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Like, it never really dawned on me when Dominique was like, yo,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: I got tickets to this, let's.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: Roll, that you were unaware that the rolling was going
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: to be happening.
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: I did not know. Did not know.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: Like, we're all working on being better friends to one another,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: and we just don't have that much.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: Practice, apparently.
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: With time.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Roy do all the stuff that we find out
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: about in the trades. Like, hey, guys, let's tell everybody
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: what Roy's doing right now, because Roy's not going.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: To tell us.
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: All right, I'll be a better friend. I'll share my victories,
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: as they say.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: I've been working on this with that hater Joel Anderson
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: for a very long time also, right? But that's how
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: you know I actually love Joel, because I'd be wanting
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: to share in his victories, but he too much of
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: a hater to even tell anybody.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: Damn shame.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: I know. I know, brother.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you. And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: for joining us here on The Right Time. We do
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: this three or four times a week. Ryan Brumley handling
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Also, hit our
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: voicemail line, 323-597-7000. Remember, follow The Right Time. Subscribe, like,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: a hater.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: We'll talk to you guys in a couple of days.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: Take it easy.