Club Shay Shay - Roy Wood Jr. Part 1 - Club Shay Shay

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Why do you turn that shot? That tequila shot down
on New Year's.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
It was too close to the Don Lemon firing.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Yeah yeah, Don and Don used.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
To get drunk the right way and can keep it journalistic.
And you know they always drinking on New Year's Eve. Yeah,
see man, you know Andy Cohen Anderson Cooper. I don't
know if I want to drink what you want. I
don't feel safe right now. If I'm going to see
it in offices and my name is up there, I'm
on the mural in the hall.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Were good?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I pull up all my life, grinding all my light, sacrifice, hustle.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
P Price, want to slice?

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Got the bro All my life? I've been grinding all
my life, all my life, grinding all my light, sacrifics, hustle,
Petty Price, want a slice?

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Got the bronc Geysa All my life.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
I've been grinding all my life.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Hello, Welcome to another episode of Club Sha Shay. I
am your host, Shanny Sharp. I'm also the Propride of
Club Sha Sha. Stopping by for converse and a drink today.
The master of observational comedy, one of the America's most
respected cultural commentators, Fords declared him one of comedy's best journalists,
a fan favorite, an Emmy Award winning correspondent, an Emmy
Award in Writers Guild of America nominated producer and a writer.

(01:16):
An award winning host. He's entertained millions as a consistent
figure on television and radio for more than two decades.
An internationally known comedian who makes you think, a dynamic
force and entertainer, A famed actor, acclaimed television personality, accomplished entertainer,
thought provoking journalists, a love philanthropist, an author, and a father.
Please welcome to the show, Roy Wood Junior.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
I've told Shane Sad how that is. I read it
like you're rehearsed.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
I just like to give people when people come on
my show, I really like for them to receive their
flowers because sometimes I don't know if they've heard it
or they realize what they've done. Because a lot of times,
when you're in it, you don't sit, you're not cherishing
it because you got to get to a destination in
your on the journey, so you don't get time to reflect.
Like damn, man I did all that. Man I did

(02:04):
a lot of stuff in a very short amount of time.
So I want someone, I want you to hear what
we think of you.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
I think smelling your own flowers feels arrogant. So that's
why I never really stopped to do it. Really, Yeah,
it's the idea. Yeah you did that, but you could
do better. You can do more. You can show me
anything I've done, and I'll show you where the mistake was.
I mean, you watched gang tape. You had full touchdown,
but the one I dropped, that's the way you remember.

(02:29):
And so for me, a lot of it is just
being rooted in how can I improve man? And so
you just don't look back at it because you're just
trying to try to just get better.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Last time somebody offer you a drink, you turned it down.
I mean normally when people come on Club Shay Shay,
we toast with.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
I don't know, oh I drink with you. Now I'll
drink with you. Is this you got understand this is
an understood drinking show. You got liquor in the decoration,
so it's you under you.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Know, Kanye, you understand it. Behind Kangyac house made.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Which one is it? It's in France, Kanyac kgnac has
to be made on the Special Street in France.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
In the Kanyac region the first two years. The kannac,
it has to originate in that region, Okay, in order
for it for it to be a kannac. Now, a
whiskey or a bourbon or a wine could be in Caul.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
The same with tequila. Gotta come from this section in Mexico.
It's not otherwise.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
It's this is a combination of an Uni blanc grape
grape and a petite champagne. So the origin of this
is a great okay, from that region, and no artificial colors,
no added sugar, so you don't get that burned. You'll
be able to taste, smell and the taste of the notes,
the marshmallows. Let me know what you think.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
That's sir. Oh that's smooth, sir. That's very changed, my poet,
that's smooth right there. This is way better than the
ship I was drinking that Famu. We was drinking ian
j Boy.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Where you go on the budget that failed? Oh yeah,
oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
We had twenty dollars and we would go down to
Jack's Liquor, pay a homeless person five dollars to go
in down and get us fifteen dollars or whatever you.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Could come back with, sir, we'll take it.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, he gonna do your right, young bloods he go
in the liquor store ten minutes and be walking around,
come back out with some ian J and some Stoley
and four dollars change.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Like when you turn let me ask your question. You
did say that you know when you're working, you don't
do you know you don't drink on the job. Why
did you turn that shot down? Tequila shot down on
New Year's Oh you're talking.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
About the C and E. Yeah, so you know they
always drinking on New Year's Eve. Yeah, and you know
Andy Cohen Anderson Cooper, everybody was drinking. They had us
out there. It was it was too close to the
Don Lemon firing.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, yeah, Don and Don.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Used to get drunk the right way. I could keep
it journalistic. And I felt like at the time, I
just be real if we being blunt, I'm new to
this network, this is my I'd only we I think
we'd only been on their ten episode yet we hadn't
even got the reup for the next ten episodes. I
don't want to drink with y'all. I don't I don't

(05:18):
want to. I don't want to be that comfortable yet
in this space when I don't necessarily know my place
within the hierarchy. Also, journalism is way more caddy than
Comedy Central or like any entertainment just the world of journalism,
like any TV station, Way more caddy than a cable
show or a sports locker room or whatever job you

(05:42):
work at, reality TV, what have you. It's a lot
of caddininess. It's a lot of whispering, it's a lot
of it's a lot of behind the back end going on, right,
And so I don't believe at any place that I
worked where I didn't create it, that I'm safe. Wow.
So I'm the host of a show on a Saturday night,

(06:05):
the show We Do Now Have I Got News for You?
It's a remake of a British show, And if you
look at political satire in Britain, the host is the
least important part of the machine. Wow, It's the co
hosts that are stars, the guests that are stars. The
host jobs. Just keep everything on track. You're kind of
a van a white Kiki Shepherd. With respect to those two,

(06:27):
I've met them both. Your job is a little bit more.
Just stay in the middle. Well, if I'm just stay
in the middle, then I'm the most replaceable, Yes, without
changing the machine that you've built. So I don't know
if I want to drink with you up for this.
I don't feel safe right now. If I'm going to
see an in offices and my name is up there,

(06:49):
I'm on the mural. You know you and Ogenia say
they got the mural with all the niggas, they've done
a good job. It be me Abby Feeler and Jake Tapper.
If I'm on the mural in.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
The hall, are we good? I'll pull up.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
But I'm new here. I don't know, y'all. I'm not
going to be just on TV drinking like that.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
What did you learn from the Don lemonfire? He had
been there for seventeen years, he'd been I mean, he'd
been held in bear high esteem, he'd been done a
great job. I think he does a great job. What
did you learn? Because I think he said something about
the firing because I think he said, like NICKI Haley
has passed a prime and maybe they use.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well that's what they said said, but was that the reason?
But they're saying what the reason might be is two
different things. I think if you really look at it,
knowing what we know now about now that we're post
Jimmy Kimmel, I think that a lot. And even Amber
Ruffin and her beef with the Right House Correspondence Association,
with them pulling her off the dinner because they wanted

(07:45):
her to be both sided with her jokes. I think
that what happened to Don Lemon was really a precursor
to some of the media's censorship that we see starting
to happen now, where you have particular organizations that are gonna,
you know, try and make a particular head roll or

(08:05):
settle a lawsuit with the administration, all in the sake
of making sure that the messaging is a little more
centrist and a little bit more on brand for whatever
will benefit the company's bottom line. I think a lot
of what Don Lemon was starting to say at that network.
And keep in mind this is also after Don had
gotten into it with Vivek Ramaswami on the air and

(08:25):
they were told, hey, keep the questions over here, but
Don was like, Nah, the meet is over here. I
learned a lot, you know, really in a lot of
in a lot of ways, man, you know, because you
know the Don lemonfire and also showed me what the
network what's seeing in at that time, or that leadership

(08:46):
at the time was trying the way they were trying
to turn the network into, Oh, let's be a little
less liberal, let's try and be a little bit more centrist. Don,
if you started getting out of line, we're gonna put
the heavy hand on you and I and see all
of that from the outside at the time. And you
know when Don got fired. Don got fired the same

(09:06):
week as Stucker Calls, and which was also the same
week I did the White House Correspondence dinner, and I
probably I am probably I went harder at Don than
I should have at that time. And we type work now,
and to Don's credit because he was the one who
reached out to me and we talked a little bit
about it, and he goes, here's what you're not seeing,
here's what's not here's what you need to be more.

(09:28):
He filled in the picture for me. You know, I
wrote a joke with you know, with one eye, you know,
covered up. And so when I look at media and
now and then now being on I guess kind of
the inside of the network, it's hard to say that
I'm in the inside of CNN. I work on a Saturday. Bro,
don't nobody be there. You've been in the building, or

(09:48):
I can steal ship. Don't nobody you know you're being
a building just a mother fuck a cubicle. They just
got all these Yeah, yeah, I'm retired from stealing. But but yeah,
but I think Don's Don's firing showed us years ago,
three four years ago where things were starting to head

(10:12):
when we're talking about the idea of how much freedom
of speech do journalists really have?

Speaker 1 (10:19):
But I think the thing is for me if I
turn into the weather channel, I expect to see the
weather if I turn into this channel, because they're trying
to be something. Fox makes no bones about what they
are about who they are. Turn you when you watch
their network, you're gonna get what you expect to get.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, but also but you also got to remember that
a lot of these media habits were developed under two
terms of Obama. So the idea of this being a
liberal leaning thing, well, it's the popular thing right now,
so we're gonna lean into what's popular. And then when
that's not popular no more, then you start figuring out
how to rejigger your network because people's taste change, people's

(10:58):
political influences changed, and we have to stop thinking about
corporations and media companies as these entities that have some
sort of heart or have some sort of degree of
sense of responsibility to the public. Now, big dog, we're
here to make money. We need eyeball so we can
sell soap at an acting coach said the relationship to me.
She said, you are a soap salesman. Your job is

(11:20):
to be so good that people don't change the channel
when the commercial come on, so they can be reminded
to buy soap. Wow, that's it.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
So if we're here to sell soap, then they're going
to constantly change, like even the time. If you look
at what we have on our show. On my show
now on Saturday nights, we had on Republican Rep. Mike Lawler,
we had timber Check like, these are not good people
in my opinion. Well, these are not people who are

(11:51):
voted in the interests of the public in my opinion,
and we have them all. I don't know if these
are the same people I would have I've been able
to talk to if I worked at Daily Show, if
I was still at the Daily Show or if those
are the type of people that we would have had
on as a guest at the Daily Show. But I
know for what we're trying to do on our side,

(12:13):
we're trying to talk a little bit and joke a
little bit with both sides. I know a lot of
people got a lot of opinions because they say you
shouldn't platform no assholes, no crazy opinions, and stuff like that,
But that's what we choose to do.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Have you have you come to the point, come to
the realization to say, you know what, I'm going to
have to change my way of thinking. I'm going to
have to be more open minded because in the past,
ain't no way I could have sat down and had
a conversation with you guys, because we're so far for
what I believe in and what I think is in
the best interest of the people. But because of this time,

(12:46):
as you mentioned, things are changing now, the tides are changing,
the winds are blowing in a different direction. Do you
feel that you know what you've had to change your thinking.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
I think I've had to change my degree of tolerance,
but I don't think it changes my opinion. I think
one big thing that I would love to see happen
in media is that there's less conversations with pundits and
political influencers and more conversations with constituents and the people who.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
So you like the town hall set ups.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah, but even more man on the street, like I
love what Don Lemon's doing. Now don Lemon out there, Yeah,
he out there in the mix. No security either, don
get you a get your in the tight shirt, protect
your brother. But the idea of just well, Trump's the president.

(13:39):
So I guess I got her to explain to me
why I should not have slavery in my museums. Please
tell me it's the African American history museum. History means
encompensing the entirety or as much as you want to
encompass history.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Story. Yeah, because you're trying to frame it that his story.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
It's the story. It ain't even here. It's they their
story the story. You know what I'm saying. So I'm
not gonna sit and listen to you explain to me
why this doesn't matter. I don't know how much calm
and collected conversation you can have with somebody that's that steadfast.

(14:23):
If we're talking policymakerge and folks that are like political
pundents on either side of the issue.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Right, So everybody got their talking points correct and they're deating.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
But if you talk to a voter, most people are
single issue voters. Most people are voting on things that
affect them directly fiscally speaking.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
But we didn't see that in this last election. People
voted against their best interests. And now they're having revision.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
It's history, okay, And so then would you be more
inclined to talk to them, because I feel like we
would rather talk to the folks that influence those voters
rather than just going to talk to go talk to
the Latino for Trump who just got deported. Some of
them they talked to and they said they still wouldn't
they still wouldn't voted for Commace exactly.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
I'm looking at the farmers, the farmers, farmers for Trump.
Now they trying to just just signed a deal to
get soybean from someone else. They're not buying our soy beans.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
And now you know, we.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Hate we hate socialism, we hate welfare. Well they call
it wearfare when it refers to us, but they call
it subsidies when it refers to somebody else. Now they're
about to get subsidized, about to get bailed out, everybody.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
For it, just like the banks.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Oh now, hold on, I thought you didn't. I thought
you didn't like when somebody got something for nothing. That's different.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
That was the blacks. I'm a good white. The marriage
supposed to happen to me.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
I'm white.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
I mean, that's the That's the biggest magic trick that
rich people pull is getting pole white folks to think
that they were one of them.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
They bought it, they bought it, you're not.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
I think that you have a better chance of having
conversations with people who vote than members of the media
if we're talking about trying to change the country in
any way. You know, I don't know how much we
gain anymore from let me have a sensible conversation, but

(16:19):
we bring them on on seeing and we're gonna crack
these jokes on your ass. And if embarrassment works, cool,
if not cool, But the idea of I can't remember
who it was or why it was, but Obama had
like a beer it was called the beer summit or
Obama sat down.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Oh yeah, when the police officer and Hearry Lewis Gates.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yeah, and Gates was been on Obama's neck came in
to have a smile. Yeah, So this idea of let's
all sit down and kumbaya, okay, maybe, But I just
think both sides. I think we're in a race right
now to see which side can activate their voters more
the apathetic voters. Yes, I don't think you're flipping people

(17:01):
right now.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, people people that have decided there's nothing. There's nothing
that he can do to turn them off, And I'm
not so sure there was anything that she could have
done to turn them on.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
You ever met anybody in despair though, bro Like like
legitimate hopelessness, to the point where they have no choice
or they feel they have no choice but to buy
a lie, and then the embarrassment of saying that you're
wrong was too great, so you have to buy the
next lie and the one after that. So of course

(17:36):
a farmer is never gonna come out right and go Yeah.
I didn't I didn't know that this was gonna happen
because they gonna get slapped in the face. But I
told you so is to go in and they too
scared of the embarrassment. And I'm not gonna be the
one to tell liberals. Yeah, you shouldn't be mean to
the people that are suffering who voted for Trump. But

(17:56):
they suffering too. You're passing law, the administration's passing laws
that make you feel a certain kind of way. Yeah,
I'm a hate on you for voting for them, So
I get where that comes from. Get that shit out
your system. I think it's a lot of behavior police,
And I just think we six months not even yeah,
yeah we are. We're almost a year into what's going

(18:19):
to be you know, another three years of this yep.
So you got to figure out a way once you're
past getting all that yelling out your system, now that
you're broke, and now that you need some help on
your farm, then you come back into your Hey, how
can I help you? But I think that most people
would rather buy a lie because it's more calm, it's

(18:40):
more peaceful. It's matrix bluepill. You know, it's easier to
exist and the calm of being wrong, because being right
means that you have to admit that you were wrong.
How many people are willing to do that?

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Freedom of speech as we currently as we once knew
it is that only in the Constitution is that something
that's gonna be It's gonna be able to stand the
test of time, because it looks like we're getting closer
and closer that there is no such thing as freedom
of speech.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Ah, it's changing. I don't I don't like I would
have told if you'd asked me a question a year ago,
I'd have been like, I'm friend of speech. You sign
you can say whatever you want, whatever you want, we'll see.
I tell you as much. They're not gonna touch the comedians.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
You don't think so.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Comedians have too much influence over the ideology of voters.
Chappelle's and the Schultzes and the Gillises of the world,
the eighty five Soupers of the world. You know, comedians,
you start trying to lock them up, right, because they

(20:08):
got the streets more than any politician does. And if
you look at what happened with Jimmy Kimmel, that was
one of the things where a lot of comedians they
didn't necessarily go with the administration, not all of them directly,
but a lot of them sat and we're like, yo,
that's not cool. Yeah, I don't think with Kimmel, but

(20:31):
that's not cool.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
We're getting on a slippery slope here.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
And then Kimmel's ass was right back on the air
in under seventy two hours, and all them demands that
those TV station networks made demanded that kim will do,
they folded on that shit, right. I don't think that.
I think the administration for sure is stress testing. But honestly,
you're not gonna need to suppress anybody's freedom of speech.

(20:57):
If you control the messaging, why do I need to yes,
say whatever you want. I just won't book you on
this show. So I hope your YouTube type, I hope
you got numbers over there. If the next Star merger
goes through and they gain control of almost eighty percent
of local television stations ABC affiliated TV stations, then they

(21:21):
control the messaging. And I speak as I have a
degree in broadcasts, and I worked in broadcasts, and I
worked in radio, so I'm not just talking out my ass.
These stations are given national stories to carry. You can
watch your local news in one market, and two thirds
of the stories Oliver John Oliver did a story on
this years ago. Two thirds of the stories in that

(21:42):
market are airing in every other market, so they can
dictate what they feed you. So you can have your
freedom of speech. But eventually, Yo, freedom of speech is
gonna be you on a corner like one of them
blow up like you ain't who gonna hear you? Who's
going to so?

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Have you remember what it was? Roy, we've grown up.
You go to the grocery store and there's a man, Jesus,
he's coming, and he's standing on the soapball and he's coming.
He had the literature, he's past got It was just him.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
By him saying, and you looked at him like he
was crazy? You did, he looked at him like he
was crazy. So I don't think freedom of speech is
one thing. I think suppression of messaging is something that's
a little bit more of a prevalent issue to me.
And then when you start with AI, you start with disinformation,
and you're confusing people who are too lazy to sit
and go and do a double check or or search.

(22:33):
Freedom speeches irrelevant. If I got the messaging on lot
and you dumb enough to believe it and run with it.
We scroll and we look at everything through through headlines.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Man right clicks whatever the headline read, Okay, that's it.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Okay, So you get a journalist who decides to tell
the truth or press the issue on air, like Don Lemon,
you just ain't him off the air and put somebody
else in who who you want to do your bidding.
So it would require for humanity to for humanity to

(23:16):
truly advance, it would require a level of fiscal self
sacrifice that I do not believe most Americans absolutely not
are prepared to make. You know, I talked about this
a couple hour specials ago. But like it's like fire ants,

(23:37):
right when there's a flood and a fire ant maun
gets flooded. This was happening in Texas during some hurricanes.
The fire ants all form a ball, and that joint
floats until it gets to dry ground. Now, while it's floating,
it's constantly rotating so that on.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
The bottom they get some fresh air too.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
It's fresh air. They rotate back down to the bottom. Yeah,
but periodically some of them cats is gonna drown. Yes,
there have to be some sacrifice. But the columni survived.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
And so if we're talking about people fighting against an
administration or fighting against public ideology, then it will require
more people all running up against that same buzzsaw. And
in some degree, you know, a lot of people are hesitant.
I don't necessarily believe that blind sacrifice is the only

(24:32):
way to make progress. I think that there's I think
that there has to be a multi pronged attack. But
when you ask the question of is freedom of speech
under attack? Yeah, they stress testing. This year is stress
testing just what we can get away with, you know,
Charlie Kirk's Charlie Kirk's widow is soon I forget the

(24:56):
network or it's ABC of the view somebody.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Yeah, forty four hundred million.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
I don't know the number. I don't want to get
sued either. Let's tell you what I heard. But the
idea of the media being policed down to the comma,
that's how we're gonna get you. We're not gonna say
you can't say anything. We're just gonna go technicality.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Want my money?

Speaker 2 (25:22):
And what's the corporation gonna do? A corporation ain't gonna
take this to trial. Sorry, we admit no wrongdoing. You
admit that we did nothing wrong, and we wash our hands.
It's sixty minutes trump sixteen million dollars. It's easier to settle.
So now, if you're gonna say anything bad about me,
I'm a tax you. But you still I got freedom

(25:44):
of speech right now. If you're the company that just
had to pay out, let's just say, Charlie Kirks widow wins,
the money should get the bread. Well, then the next
time there's anything sideways or politically charged, it needs to
be said on the show, y'all gonna get calling to
that meeting before the showget yeah. All we're gonna say

(26:06):
is this, here's your words, here's your words, and hit
freedom speech. So right right, So, I think that you
create an atmosphere where the media is scared to touch
on anything because they know that there's a fiscal consequence,
and the employees are scared to touch on anything because
there's a fiscal consequence. And the only thing you're going

(26:27):
to be left with is comedians and podcasters because they're
the ones who don't give a fuck. They already been broke,
they already been slapping a car. So threatening them with
unemployed the comedy stand up comedy is literally committing to
unemployment for three to five years to start, right, Hey, man,
I want you to do this. I'm not gonna pay

(26:48):
you nothing, and I'm gonna give you two chicken wings
and if you get boots, you don't get the chicken wings.
So you're not that group of people. You're not gonna scare.
I believe that group of people will always have the
highest of respect from the voting from the voting body,
and I think that they will continue to be the
most influential characters and politics. That's why politics, that's why

(27:11):
podcasts became so prominent. In the last selection.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Yeah, this episode is brought to you by Prize Picks.
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It's good to be riting this is but we're headed
down a real and it ain't even slippery. It's just
jet ski. It's just downhill because when you look at it,
if you can't say anything negative about the president, we're

(28:38):
headed to Russia, We're headed to China, We're headed to
North Korea, We're headed to these because and I think
that's kind of the direction that he will. He's like,
you shouldn't be able allowed to say anything negative.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
But that's not just it's not just about the president.
It's negative about anybody that supports his mission as well. Correct,
So that's where it's gonna and that's why that's why
I brought us to Charlie Kirk with oo situation. And
it's not just her, there's also all of these other
public officials that are going on. When you said something
about me, well maybe I can get a little bit
of money too, So do you make it illegal to

(29:07):
say the thing? I think we are going to eventually
be in a situation in this country where patriots are
going to have to choose between their leader and the
founding fathers and the documents they wrote up, and we're
gonna see what you wanna win. Well, black folks just
along for a ride. This this don't concern us. I
mean it does, but we ain't got no say. It's

(29:27):
just this is just watching white folks fight, right, that's
really what politics is.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Well, it looks like the Supreme Court, and listen to
Clarence Thomas, like anything that's been written can be challenged.
It just seems like anything that he's saying it's not lost.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
So there's nothing gospel, nothing is gospel? Then the oh
okay God. So then if Clarence Thomas say nothing is gospel,
and he can go well, we can go back and
look at any decision. I thought Supreme meant lad, that's it,
that's it done.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Boom.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
We never talking about this again. Right, So if they
can undouce Supreme Court rulers, at what point can they go,
you know what, maybe we need to do to redo
some of these amendments. Yes, yes, that's coming. It's all
stress testing. Everything right now is stress testing, and.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
There's really nothing you can do about it because they
got a sixty three.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
It's like when you date a girl and then you're
trying to see how dumb she is and see what
you can get away with. Okay, you ain't gonna go
with me on now you treat all your women good? Okay,
that's fine, My bad, My bad?

Speaker 1 (30:31):
What you do?

Speaker 2 (30:32):
I'm not calling for two days and see if she
get mad and if she on trip off? You not
calling for two days? You know you got a two
day window. Sorry, I'm talking too much. Bad, I'm signed
about that.

Speaker 4 (30:47):
Where are you on.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
National guard in the city? Where are you on the
National Guard with what?

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Why would anybody before that?

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Look?

Speaker 2 (30:56):
Where are you on? Wasting niggas time?

Speaker 1 (31:00):
But you know DC, they say mad, DC is the
safest it's ever been. I ain't getting carjack.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Did you see did you see the footage in Chicago
or the brother on the bike just riding past the
National Guard they walking down Miracle I think it's called
Miracle Madama whatever it is down the downtown, the nice
the nicest guard. Yes, yeah, fuck crime is down here.
But you want to go to South Shore with that
nonsense where you though you're not and so like you're

(31:27):
not gonna go MLK in fifty fifth with it, are you?
You're not? So stop acting like this isn't something. This
is some big ass theater.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Man.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
I feel bad for the National Guard soldiers bro right,
because like people get mad at the Guard like they
the police. I'm in the National Guard. You signed up
one weekend a month, two weeks a year to fix
a tank and get some college education behaving. And the
problem is that the National Guard dressing the same camo
as the SWAT and the police. So it's just as

(32:00):
mad at them because they are being used as.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
So you believe it's a political theater.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Absolutely, and I do not like the fact that people
who have taken an oath to die for this country
are being told to walk past or fucking lids on
Michigan avenue to make sure nobody's still in fitted caps,
because that's what's happening in Chicago right now. And I

(32:28):
think that using our military for that purpose it's backwards,
is dumb and stupid. All of the ice stuff is
backwards and dumb and stupid, just in general. But the
idea of having that presence, it should also tell you
just how easy it is to get the public opinion

(32:48):
of people. Because yeah, DC's the safest it's ever been.
But you know what else make people safe? Parks, sports,
literacy programs, jobs, yes, and you know what, that stuff
needs money. So the same money you use to pay

(33:09):
a whole platoon, you could have done more literacy. But
the second and third grader should get kids. There's statistics.
My ministry is literacy, youth literacy and sports, right because
in Birmingham, those are the two things that have really
helped to turn around some of the crime in the city.
You get kids reading a grade level by the third grade,
they're less likely to be hungry or homeless, they're less

(33:32):
likely to end up in jail. So you want to
stop crime, start way down there. So don't tell me
that this is fighting crime. Okay, cool, But is this
the only way to fight crime. It's silly and it's nonsensical, man,
and it's theater, and it's inviting open government harassment to

(33:54):
the point where it potentially becomes normalized. And that's not
that's not good. You know, they talking about the Guard
in Portland. They're talking about the Guard and National Guard
going on tour like these are regular folks. Are they
still in I don't know, because they never stayed with
the story long enough. They show you the Guard there,

(34:15):
They never show you them leaving. That might be an
indictment on the media, but I don't I don't agree
with Like. The short answer is, I think it's stupid
to deploy soldiers.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Your military to police your own citizens.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
To police your own citizens.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
I'm interested to hear what you have. How we are
the I guess I GDP is through the ying yang.
Why do we have the mass shootings that no other
country has?

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Why because we don't have the mental health care all
these other countries. We be comparing ourselves to God, jobs
and God, some healthcare and less shit for citizens to
stress and worry about. They also don't have nearly the
degree of conspiracy. Theorists and people dealing with all types

(35:13):
of mental health issues and isolation, which in and of itself,
even the most sane person can be broken down if
they're isolated long enough. And that's what COVID did, That's
what a lot of remote work did, which, by the way,
that's that's the that's like one of the few things
that Trump and Elon was talking about. I was like,
all right, I give you that one. Get your ass

(35:34):
back to work.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Why they don't want to go back to work?

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Because, man, you people. For a lot of people, your
office is the only place you see people. Yes, you
at home by yourself, and then you work at a
computer by yourself. Then you get fired over zoom and
then you come to the grocery store and shoot me.
That's fucked up. Yeah, I ain't do nothing to duck
the one fired. You go to the building. How you

(35:58):
shoot dug bro? How you call the people that you
work with stop? There's a lot of mass shootings because
they can't get to the people they want to kill.
There's some good cognac.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Why how do you let mess you this? How do
you call in sick to work and you work from home?

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Sit in the bed right there? Man?

Speaker 1 (36:24):
You got the rod you can't get nobody sick but yourself,
but still you will a minute you put jab on me.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
I'm not optimistic. I'm not performing at my optimum, you know.
But I really do think that America has a unique
set of circumstances where there are a million different ways
your life could be ship in this country, and there

(36:51):
are a million different solutions that are not functional, and
you can at some point have a degree of hopelessness
and taking a gun and killing strangers might be your
only way of, as you believe, sensibly trying to I
don't know, alleviate that pain or to be seen. That's

(37:14):
a real crazy thing about shootings now is that we
don't even righteously be naming the shooters no more like
it used to be a time. And it sounds like
a joke, but I'm not. Like there used to be
a time where if you shot a bunch of people,
they would say your name, they would reach your manifesto,
and like it would be it would be news for
multiple days. It could be a shooting at noon that

(37:36):
don't make the six o'clock news. It could be a
shooting at six that don't make the ten pm news.
Because we don't care. So the idea is absolutely even
in murdering people, you're still an unknown because it's such
a norm. And I think that comparing America to other

(38:00):
countries is one of the most backwards. There's no other
country like America is fifty fucking countries all connected, So
you do, we do have a lot of different man
in Switzerland, there's Switzerland the size of Delaware.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Shut up it don't it's not the same. And they're
probably likes yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
And they all ride bikes, so that helps your health
and your bit total health in it. You can't get
people to ride city buses and most cities that have
decent transportation because I want my car. So they're just
more stressors and there's less solutions in this country. And
I think that's why mental health is so problematic and just.
And it's not just mass shootings. I mean a lot

(38:46):
of domestic violence in this country and violence against women.
It's all rooted in a lot of the same causations,
you know, and so a lot of the crime is
rooted in that. And I think that's a big reason
why crime here is so different. That's why we have

(39:07):
more people in prison than any other place on Earth,
more people on probation than any other place on earth
with probation set up. I think with two million in
the prisons, four maybe five million people on papers and
probation don't mean you free.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
It's set up one thing.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
And I say that as somebody that did three years
of federal probation like that's not it is not set
up in any shape form of way to encourage you
or to make you better. I'm here because we just
haven't figured out how to put you in there, right,
But I'm gonna watch your ass in the moment you
give me a chance get I'm gonna put you in there.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
I'll tell you what this is what I'm gonna do.
Then I'm gonna make you president in twenty eight You're
gonna be the president. Everybody out of prison, but rapists charmelin, okay,
get back to me. But nonviolent prison no, so do weed.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
You open the doors for them? Absolutely. I be legalized cocaine.
Damn it is it killed? I mean you got the
fentanyl in it. But that ain't okay. You called a
bad batch. I'm sorry, damn uh right. If we're talking

(40:34):
about putting people in jail, bro there was a story
we tried to do on the Daily Show. That didn't
get done. But there were owners of private prisons who
were suing the states. They are contracted to imprison people
in because they don't have enough prisoners because the state

(40:57):
got lax on some of their laws and decided to
be more lenient on incarceration. So you have a state
government that goes, all right, we ain't gonna put as
many people in prison, but the private company running the
prison go, nah, mo, fucking you promise that eighty percent
capacity at all times we had fifty percent capacity. Go

(41:17):
catch some niggas and bring them and put or reimburse
me for the people that are not in here. And
the state can't afford to do it. So they locked
up in court right now. Damn almost everybody in this country.
You're a commodity to someone else. And you know, if

(41:43):
you're making me president, the first thing I'm changing is incarceration.
I got very lucky, bro had. I had a probation
officer that actually cared about how my life is it
up A couple that being at FAM you and the

(42:04):
faculty in the stats. So my pops used to teach
a family, my mama, FAM you my auntie fam you.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
So it was enough.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
Folks in the faculty like a right, we're gonna bring
you close and hold you close and make sure you
don't slip up again and get expelled. But I think
that the idea of recidivism in this country is pretty
non existent. It's all, it's all setting you up, got

(42:34):
your stuff. So my last year of probation, I was
in so I stole credit cards when I was in college.
I know you're thinking cocaine trafficking.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
Nah nah no, no, No, normally credit college kid credit
cards or phone card. You remember they used to do
the phone.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Call MC I collect down down down the center.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
You know.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
I didn't do that because I thought phones was traceable
and they were recording the calls and they do a
voice match and catch me. So I knew people who
was running and shit. So I had a work study
in the campus post office. I still credit cards out
the post office. Damn take them to through the mall,
buy shit, sell it on campus for half price. I
get caught. And this is to my point about recidivism, right,

(43:15):
So I had it's too late. I can say it's enough.
Statute of limitations. So when you're on federal probation. You're
not supposed to leave the state ever. You leave the
state for a birth of a child. With the death
of it, they got like a family tree of here
the dead people. You can go right bury, mom, grandma, Yeah,

(43:36):
is that my cousin? No?

Speaker 1 (43:38):
No, no, no.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Stay your ass in Florida. My last my first two
years of stand up, my PO was like, if you
come back that night, you can go anywhere you want.
So I could get away as far as Atlanta and
get back and get a little travel permit for that
type of stuff. And then my last year I was

(43:59):
given this is year three, same year I started doing
stand up after I got arrested, depressed or whatever.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
And so.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
That third year, I graduate college and I want to
move back to Birmingham, and he goes, well, if you
move to Birmingham, you gotta transfer your supervision to the
Birmingham Federal District. You can't stay in the Florida Federal
District now, mind you. At this point, my PO knows me.
We got a good rapport. I got a job, I'm
wearing a golden corral, everything straight. I'm traveling with anywhere

(44:32):
within eight hours of Tallahassee I'm coming back. You know,
every two three days, you get a travel permit for
up to nine days. At that time, I go, cool, well,
I want to move home because I'm done in Tallahassee.
I called the Birmingham Division to get my probation transfer,
and I'm explaining to the woman what I am, what
I do, blah blah blah. Here's how we've been doing

(44:54):
things in Tallahassee, Sir, I don't give a fuck what's
being going on down now. You report here and you
transfer here. You ain't going nowhere but Jefferson County. I'm like, fuck,
I can't even go to Tuscal looser And she was saying, no,
you can't. It wouldn't give me a reason. I got

(45:16):
two years of paperwork that say I'm doing it right.
Pour into me, Pour into these people. You treat people
in this country who made a mistake like they're irredeemable,
so they start acting that way. But if you pour

(45:37):
into them, you might just get a couple of decent
folks out of it, and recidivism might actually work. I
had to stay in Tallahassee another year. Bro In turn,
I started Ricky Smiley That same year. Ricky leaves the
radio station in Birmingham. Ricky is like my comedy Olji.
We both from Birmingham, and Ricky was the first person

(45:57):
from the Crib to make it in any capacity. So
you saw Ricky and you go, all right, I can
do that because he wasn't like Bo Jackson or Charles
Barkley or I mean Arsenio Hall from around the Way,
like those people were just such god status. You ain't
gonna be both. But oh fuck Ricky, Huh, maybe I can.

(46:23):
I get the internship at ninety five to seven in
Birmingham while I'm still under the supervised probation in Florida,
which means every nine days I have to drive from
Birmingham back to Tallahassee to run my piss, to verify residents,
to do all my regular check ins. So essentially, my

(46:47):
first year in Birmingham was just a year long visitation
permit from Florida because a Birmingham district would not give
me any flex whatsoever. So when I say I'm lucky, man,
I really do feel that I remember it. Like I
feel like there's parts of our court system that they

(47:14):
don't show. They show you cop catching criminal, they show
your Courtroom TV show. There never been anything on that
I'd ever seen about probation officers. That's why I was
trying to do that little comedy sitcom about probation officers,
because it really is social work to a degree, you know,

(47:35):
and it's a lot of pos that for no reason
will violate people who don't deserve to be violated. And
then at the end of the day, probation is even
more dangerous because it's your word against a single person
who may just have a grudge against you today and
they can go, ah, he was late to work, kein
serious about employment, your honor. I would recommend that they
go back to be locked up and then you going

(47:56):
for whatever the rest of your sentence was supposed to be.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Just like that.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
They don't, they don't show that part of recidivism in
this country, and it's something that I think would help
to change the public perception of criminality and the idea
of making a mistake and then you're redeeming yourself and

(48:24):
you do it. That's why I talk about it out
in the open anyway, right because casts needs to know, like,
your mistake ain't your destination. That's a stop and I
wish more people would show that and talk about that,
but they don't. You try to make everybody out to
be this irredeemable character, and that's how society starts treating

(48:47):
you after a while, you know. But I I don't know, man,
I just I was really really blessed. Man, I was
really blessed because my pops died when I was sixteen,
and I just started in guidance from just random guardian
And you know my book, I call it The Man
of Many Fathers because it just really was random people

(49:08):
that just dropped in. Yeah, but I wasn't sinking that out.
It just it happened.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
You have your comedy, you wanted a few and uh Chappelle, Rock,
Rested Soul, Paul Mooney, Carlin with these could could blend
politics in comedy and make it a smooth, seamless transition.
Chappelle is unbelievable at it, Rock is unbelievable at it.

(49:35):
Mooney and Carlin is unbelieva because you have that gift.
Did you choose did that aspect of comedy? Did it
choose you or you chose it?

Speaker 2 (49:48):
I think it chose men.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Because everybody can't blend that. Everybody can't tie that in
a nice boat like that.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Roy I opened for Dick Gregory.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
Oh, Dick Hell, I forgot about him.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
I don't know, man, It was a while ago. It
was at one of the bridge crossing Jubilees and Selma
Bloody Sunday Memorial, and I just sat on the dais
and just watched him just oscillate between pain and funny,
and he kept them distinctly separated until the end. And like,

(50:25):
just I know, I'll never be able to do that,
partly because of the era he came up in. His
scars are different from that. I ain't got no scars
compared to Dick Gregory's scars. So the reservoir of pain
from which he was able to mine from and pull from,
it's deeper, it is more rich. But you know, I

(50:48):
came up, you know shadow on my pops. You know
my pops. He was a civil rights journalist and so
my dad in the forties, in the fifties, he was
pretty much any radio station. Yeah, I hired at he
was the first black And he gets to Chicago and
he co founds with a couple other gentlemen the National

(51:08):
Black Network, which at its time was the first black
syndicated National News Service, a collective of black reporters all
pooling their stories together and then sending them out on
the wire to other radio stations, to other black radio
stations to air, so that there could be some sort
of cohesive message and sense of community about stories that

(51:30):
irrelevant to black people. So wait til South Africa, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, anything,
pretty much like from South Africa and riots in the
fifties to about Rodney King. My pops covered it. He
was there with the tape recorder, covered it, did call

(51:52):
in shows, community of wearing the shows. And so when
I was when I was a child, I would ride
with my pops to the radio stations in the morning.
So my parents didn't get back together untill I was
in the third grade. So I got sent to Birmingham
every summer before that, me and my mom were still
living in Memphis. We weren't even in Birmingham yet, And
every summer first grade, second I'm with my pops all summer,

(52:16):
and I'm just shadowing him to speaking engagements and he's
interviewing Jesse Jackson and Farah Kahn, just sitting and breaking
bread with all of these you know, deeply rich political
people and white folks too. He sat down with George,
the Old George and Daddy Bush way back in the day.

(52:37):
He interviewed them all.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
And so.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
I remember when I was fifteen, I got a learners
permit and I used to drive my pops down to Montgomery.
He had a talk show at Alabama State, and so
he would do a Saturday morning call and show at
Alabama State, and I would just sit in a cut
I'm on the game boy, and you think you're not
absorbing this shit, but he's just taking call after call
from the community and offerings, offering a poolpit for people

(53:02):
to voice their grievances, allow black people to feel heard
and seen. And I get to college and I'm like, man,
I want to be Stuart Scott. I'm gonna talk about
this every shit, right, because that's all I came up in.
And then on top of that, you live in Birmingham.
Everything is black. It's a seventy seventy five percent black city.

(53:26):
School was predominant. Every school I went to was predominantly black.
I went to the black owned Boys and Girls Club,
I went to the black church, black boys, everything black.
Then go to black ass fam you everything black. So
I was like well, I just want to analyze the world.
But once I hit my thirties, man, and then when
I had my son switch flip. I don't know what happened,

(53:51):
but you start looking at the world at oh okay
different LYMB Yeah. I mean you also have to remember, man,
you know my comedy. When I first started, I was nineteen,
I ain't had shit to talk about. I was talking
about booked buy back and your roommate eating your food
and marching band jokes. Nobody. That was my wheelhouse, That's

(54:12):
what I That was the easiest thing. You write what
you know. And then as you get earl older and
you started taking.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
A longer look, you have different experiences.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
And then somehow I essentially became my dad. Like this
is how you but you couldn't help it. This is
how like entrench. And I've told the story before, but
I'll tell it to you because I'm sure you don't
know it. Like when I tell you my pops was
like entrenched in bettering black people. That's all he was

(54:46):
dedicated to, That's all that mattered to him. One of
the reporters he hired at wvo N in Chicago was
a dude named Don Cornelius, and so Don was a
police officer and he pulls my pops over, and my
pops trying to get out the ticket, go you got
a nice voice. I don't know. That's not how I

(55:09):
would get out of the ticket. That's all I'm gonna say.
He gives Donna's card. Don heading back a year later,
and Don started working at the radio station as a reporter,
and that became Don Cornelius's entry into the world of media.
At some point in the midst of all of that,
he does his homework on Don Cornelius does his homework
on television and Dick Clark, and he comes back to

(55:31):
my pops and a couple of folks and goes, Yo,
give me a couple of thousand, give me some money.
I'm gonna shoot a pilot for a show that I
think could be dope. It's I'm gonna call it. I
call it Soul Trained. Yeah, it's just gonna be Dick
Clark got American dance. Why can't we have black people dancing?
So my pops was one of the people that gave
Don Carnelius the front money seed money to shoot sould train.

(55:54):
Don Cornillius goes shoots Soul Trained Pilot can't sell that.
Nobody would buy it, nobody aired, he can't put no
ads on it, so he ain't got his money to
pay people back. My pops comes to done and he goes, hey, man,
it's been a minute. When we get my money back,

(56:14):
and don goes, we'll tell you what instead of giving
you your money back, why don't I make you one
of the producing partners and Soul Trained. I think this
could go a long way, Roy, and I think it's
gonna be a good investment, and I think it's gonna
be something that really changes the culture, to which my
father replied, motherfucker, don't nobody want to watch dance for

(56:37):
an hour? Give me my fucking cash. Don kNs broke
your ball. But if your dad had a talk, you wouldn't.
But see that if he'd talking about Roy, you wouldn't.
If you wouldn't be you wouldn't be Roy. Now I
understand that, But I tell that story to prove the

(56:58):
point of just how focused my father was on Black America.
He was. He grew up Atlanta, Georgia in the nineteen thirties.
My grandfather, who I never met, got snatched up when
my dad was four, never came home again, so you

(57:19):
know what that is. Moved to Chicago with his mama,
no head of household, no male head of household ever
again in his life. So you grew up in the
streets like that with a single mom. And then you
see every single atrocity that you can name, your friends, murdered, assassinated,

(57:44):
people that you broke bread with, people that you covered
in the sixties, one of the most trying decades with
black folks, heart of the civil rights and then a
motherfucker come to you and go, hey, what did black
people be dancing?

Speaker 1 (57:57):
People?

Speaker 2 (57:57):
They get the out my face. You don't understand what's
happening out here. But the truth of the matter is
that Soul Train was right on time because black people
needed a release. We deserve that. But my pops couldn't
see the vision. He couldn't see it because he was
just so entrenched in the.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Problems your comedy and going back and study. You said
something very interesting and I never even thought of it
until you said it. You said, nobody gave it damn
about the vice president till a female got it, till
a woman got the job, and then all of a
sudden the vice president, who really is a figurehead. All
she does is breaking the time there's a fifty to
fifty tie in the Senate, she'll break it. But that's

(58:39):
really that's the shove at the middle school. That's really,
that's really their only job. Yeah, but now I've never
seen a vice president get as much criticism. President Biden
is the president, and it seems like everything that he
got wrong it was her far and she had to

(59:01):
take the run of it.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
Yeah, I mean, it's a better question for a black woman.
But the ones I've talked to have been like, that's
what we've been trying to tell you. I don't think that.
I don't think Kamala got a fair deal. And she
talks about that a little bit in her book I
haven't finished it one hundred and seven days. She breaks
down the whole run of what happened, you know, like,

(59:26):
I don't even think we talked about a vice president.
Who's the boy that shot the one in the face? Cheney?
Cheney shot somebody in face. He was like, all right,
we got to talk about him. Dan Quayle couldn't spell
a word back in the eighties, Like alright, got to
talk about him. But you know, no, I don't. I
don't think that Kamala Harris got I don't think she

(59:47):
got a fair deal in her election run, whether you
love her or not, whether you voted for or not,
the idea of hey, motherfuckers, something real quick early y'all
gave her.

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
The ball.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
On her own two yard line with no timeouts.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
Pull a John l Way, go down the field to
get and win the game. And the drive in nineteen
eighty six.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Yeah yeah, and then when you don't, we go your
terrible It's all your fault, ain't no no wonder she's
been laying low?

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Yeah all this time? Damn did The black said, well,
you know when President Trump his first his first term
in office, man, the money was flowing. We got them
stemens everybody. The unemployment was down. Hey mans up, hey man.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
We were doing Unless you flipping bitcoin with them, you
ain't making no money with Trump right now.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
But that's what they they said, They said, the black
they did so much better under President Trump than they
did President.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Just an average black boy. Yes, okay, yeah, I could
go with that, like I understand that, like that, that
just goes back to what I was talking about earlier. Man,
politics is personal. I give about the world for if
I'm hurting, but if somebody broke bread with me when
I was down, I ain't gonna never forget that. Think
about when you was down and who was there for you,

(01:01:20):
and who gave you a dollar, who gave you a
bite of a burgers split the pizza witch? Right, there's
an undying loyalty to people like that that extends well
beyond politics, especially with black folks, because most people don't
can help us. So I could get why Trump giving
you a stemmy.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
But it was Congress, with Democratic Congress that passed that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
I got talking about the facts. Facts. You're talking to
me about facts, Trump name on the check.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Enough for you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
But that goes back to the idea of most people
don't want to know truth and facts and information. So
if you can figure out a way to attach yourself
to the life and they buy it, you won. Yes,
we got it. Like politics is getting to a place
where I feel like liberals are constantly trying to well, no, no, no,

(01:02:17):
that's not what it was. That's not what there was
really actually it was. There's no effective way to deliver
a will. Actually, you just gotta tell your lie, make
you a lie bigger than their lie, because that's what's
selling right now. But that's not ethical, and I think that,

(01:02:39):
and I think, but I think that a lot of
people still believe that there is a way to win ethically.
And I think that if you can win unethically then
govern ethically, then maybe there's a way to run that back.
But the idea, you're not gonna get black folks or
pull white people to understand. Well, actually, League Congress, if

(01:03:01):
you understand the disbursement of checks and how things are
actually allocate. All I know is that I was broke
and somebody in government gave me that money. And the
president is considered the head of government. Therefore the president
gets credit.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Period.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
I don't care that Trump had his signature added, and
that's the truth. But you're trying to get you're trying
to permeate people with truth who don't have the time
or the patience or the desire. Most of the time,
we're smart people, we're very smart people. I'm not gonna

(01:03:41):
call him dumb, just impatient and you're starving and you're hurting,
and so you figure out ways to sell a lie.
This administration has done a brilliant brilliant like they they've
shown you the blueprint of how to get people to

(01:04:03):
believe blindly folks saying though, Trump as they getting loaded
into the ice van, what kind of that's the level
of dedication?

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
And four generations of farmers are starting to lose their farm.
They're going to go belly up because nobody's buying their soybeing,
nobody is buying their wheat, nobody is buying their products,
and they're about to lose because they can't pay for
that farm equipment. They can't pay for that first live
and they don't they have all those crops they can't sell.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
I think that I will say this if I think
that I think that both sides stand to gain more
of a political advantage by activating passive voters. But you're
definitely not gonna flip anybody without empathy. And I think
that what we've seen right now in this country over
the last year or two, there is no empathy from

(01:04:55):
liberals to Republicans. It's very much around and find out,
you gathertry desert, don't call black women okay cool? But
then the plan, if that's the play, then the plan
needs to be how do you activated all the other
people who don't believe that the party didn't have a plan.
And I think that's the part that that's a solution
that nobody's presented. You can't keep writing letters and reprimanding

(01:05:19):
the president, you know, and vice versa. You're not going
to get sympathy from Republicans to liberals.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
I mean Dale hugely said it best when he was
talking about how people were there was no sympathy. The
way the George Floyd jokes flew in comparison to the
way that people were telling jokes about Charlie Kirk. Well,
you're never going to get those people. You're never going to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
Get the Trayvon Martin people. People had had had this
tradebar Martin costume, they had the skills and they had
this stuff in there.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
It was funny, correct, And so so with everything that
happened with Charlie Kirk, the expectation of empathy from from
liberals from that side, it's a realistic expectation. You may
want the empathy, but there are a lot of people
who are still forever are gonna feel some kind of way.
And I think that a lot of those feelings people

(01:06:13):
are going to carry to their graves and I don't
know if there's a policy that any Democrat can flip
that's going to that's gonna flip a moderate Republican without
losing without losing some liberals because there's a lot more
morals on the Democratic side. And so when you've got

(01:06:35):
morals and you need to let go of some of
your morals to rill in some of the Republicans, I
think you stand to lose more, you know, Democrats. So
I don't know. It's a rock and a hard place.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
Where are you protest?

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
I'd go to Canada, but I'm a felon. May be tricked.
Every time I go to Canada. I got to fill
out a gang of paperwork and promise I ain't gonna
steal nothing. Man, you still do on paper, No, But
Canada don't care like Yo. It's a lot of countries
where they find out you did dirt. In America, they
think that you like the master criminal. They thank you

(01:07:06):
that frenchship from Netflix were looping, Loopine looping. I forget
the brothers. I try to use actors' real names because
then that's how black people just call you that forever.
But yeah, what do I feel on protests?

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Yes, because you see how I think it was Pastor
Jamal Bryant. He asked, you know, look here says Target
is getting rid of that DEI don't worry about it.
Let's not go to their thing, and it's done. It's
killed their stock. Yeah, so there's still power in the protest.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Yeah, absolutely, there's still power in voting with your dollars. Yes,
all of this is a form of protests. It's all fiscal.
That's why any corporation if you look at what Target
did during George Floyd and it's like, oh well, we
will have the programs and the initiatives, and we will

(01:07:59):
hire blacks, and we will study while we are racist,
and we will read doctor Ebram x kin d will
reach your book, tell me why I'm a racist cracker
xk like. And it wasn't just Target. All of these
companies made all of these promises and we gonna do
the thing, and then an administration came in and said

(01:08:19):
we're gonna up your cash if you don't stop fucking
with them niggas. And then it's a business decision. And
it always was because four or five years ago it
was if you don't show us that you don't care
about black people, and D and I we gonna up
your cash. And now all these these companies, man, they

(01:08:41):
getting stuck up from both sides. That's what ABC and
Disney dealing with with the Kimmel fiasco. Yeah, if you
you better let go of Jimmy Kimmel, or we're gonna
mess up your merger. Paramount CBS all y'all, y'all aired
a clip of me, kind of edited but unedited. All right,

(01:09:02):
well watch this. You're gonna pull that sixteen minutes report
and you're gonna give me sixteen million dollars or I'm
not gonna let your merger go through and I'm up
your cash. It's all a heightst bro, and I'm not
I think the failure we have made as black people's

(01:09:28):
thinking that corporations have humanity.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
You're about I was about to say, morals.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
You can manipulate them, and you can have the upper hand,
and you can gain leverage, and you can get what
you want, and it can help advance society and make
make the world a better place. But just know that
the only reason they probably did it was because you
had the gun to their head. It's not a coincidence.
When you look at the increase the depth of Dee

(01:09:59):
and I and the increase of black women unemployment in
this country because it's not just necessarily black women that
were hired to run whatever DEI initiative for a company,
but a lot of those black women were hired under
the guys of this program even though you were perfectly qualified. Yes,

(01:10:20):
we put your hire under this umbrella, with this grant
and patre with this initiative instead of just leaving it. Like,
I think that that part of it is. I think
protests are effective. I just don't think that we should
continue to assume companies to be as quick to cayote

(01:10:44):
they're not. Protesting was easier back in the day, Like
we talk about sit ins and all of that shit.
That's because it was just Jimmy's Dina like, yeah, you
can shut down Jimmy, But to effectively protest something, now.

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
Yeah, they got fifteen three, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
And you connected a millionaire. That's why I knew white
folks wasn't gonna they was gonna fold on that bud
Light protest. They were like when bud Light had the
trans actress, yeah, and they were all, oh, we ain't
drinking bud Light. They were shooting the cans and shit,
you know how many different liquor brands are run by
Anheuser Busch and Bill, it's like twenty twenty or so brand.

(01:11:25):
Are you really that dedicated? You're not. You're not gonna
for Did you get the speaking of protests? Did you
get the the George Zimmerman paper protests email when that happened.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
I don't have email, so no, I wouldn't have What
the fuck? I don't have email. Okay, Jordan has email.
My sister had email, So they'll say they text.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
That's fair. Like Bill Murray. You know Bill Murray just
got a phone with answer machine and he checks it
every day. Okay, and that's how he it's gigs. No,
there was an email. I don't know if this was true,
but I got this email. It was supposedly a paper
company was funding George Zimmerman's defense fund at the time.

(01:12:14):
And we got an email and it said boycott this
paper company. And it was like thirty different brands of
paper and picnic and plates and paps, and I don't
buy none of this shit. Don't buy none. It was
like twenty different toilet tissues. And I wanted to reply
to the email, Well, how am I gonna wipe my ass? Like,

(01:12:35):
what about what you gotta give me? Alternative obsite? I
say that to say the idea of protesting is something
where you have to be much more steadfast than what
I think our ancestors had to be, because there's also

(01:12:55):
a serious degree of convenience with a storelin target. I
live three blocks from a Target in New York City
and walked past it and it's like, fuck, I know
it's in there.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do think that protesting is.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
It's still effective. But I do think that there is
a degree of I don't want to say a lack
of unity across our race, but there's definitely people who
are just gonna be I'm not with that. I ain't
doing that. People forget the Montgomery bus boycott was a year,
like it was a long time, Like it wasn't three

(01:13:43):
weeks folded it was carpools and.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
And the sanitation boycott that they had down there. Yeah,
people actually think it like with like a no, it
was a long, long period of time.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Well, that's also because a lot of boycotts now are
top of the news cycle and then they fall off
and nobody else is talking about it after that, but
you know, you hope Target does the right thing. There's
a lot of companies that have backpedal.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
Let's get to your career dating scene now, because you
was once married, we're gonna talk about your.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
We weren't married, but we moved like we were.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
Oh you weren't.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
No, no, but we made we were we were solid,
So we moved like that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
Yeah, so what's the what's the dating scene now? To
war roy Wood Junior.

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
Now, I work bro.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
So in other words, you tried. So that's what you're
telling them. I work now because they say, well, you
want to if you wanted to find time, you could
find time. You find time for your son. That's my son,
you know that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
What it is?

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
That what they tell you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
Yeah, I have I have met. I've been blessed. I'm
blessed now with the eyesight to know when it is
a good woman enough met one or two. But I
also have enough sense to know of what it is

(01:15:10):
I'm trying to build right now. And I think what
I underestimated and being single again was the idea of
also quitting my job at the same time. I quit
Daily Show around the same time. Yes, and I am
an order. I was going to do next, and I

(01:15:31):
still have a family to support together or not, we
remain a family, We remain a unit. You remain the
most important person in my ecosystem because you're helping me
raise the boy. So there's certain things that have to
be provided for. So yeah, I'm going to work right now.

(01:15:56):
And back to what you were talking about at the
top of this, man about the flowers. I can't stop
to smell them because I gotta keep going. If I stop,
the wheels come off of all of this. And I
don't know if that's a pressure that men put on
themselves unnecessarily, but it don't change the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
It is because you feel you have a sense of responsibility. Yeah,
but it's the truth. People are commonly going, Yeah, absolutely is.

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
So I need to be in a space where I
can never again be waiting on someone else to choose me,
which is what happened at the Daily Show. Yes, So
to get in that space requires a level of focus
and work. As the industry that I love starts to

(01:16:47):
change and crumble. Oh, I'm gonna do Daily Show and
then I'm gonna get me a late night show. Now
no more, you ain't late night show where this is
the last licks, Jimmy fallon Kimmel them the last licks.
Ain't nobody else coming in and doing. I don't know
what's gonna be next, but it ain't gonna be that

(01:17:10):
land seeing in cool. Write a book, cool, sell to
TV shows, write a movie. Cool. You just start putting
pots on the stove, pots on the stove. I don't know,
but I can tell you that figuring out taking one
off to put in a relationship and not being sure

(01:17:31):
if that's going to work, and knowing that if any
of these other pots fail, bigger ecosystem that I have
a higher responsibility to first suffers. Son will never suffer
my son. He's my only child. So do you go
be straight? Now? I can't do this alone. But you

(01:17:53):
know it's hard when you're grinding man and you're trying
to figure out relationships because you almost need someone to
just merging with you in traffic. This idea of stop
and courtship, and it's I've never dated under this degree
of industry pressure before, and I don't know how to
handle it because I don't have anything to recreate last time,

(01:18:16):
Like when I met my son's mother, I was sitcom.
It just got canceled. I'm on ESPN for free two
days a week. Praying at that gig lead me to
get another college gig. Shout out to Sports Nation and
Jamail Hill, his and hers, but Moni Jones just to
put like just praying one of them three pm ESPN shows.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
Hit and give you something else. How much of what
your father, how your father was to you has rubbed
up on you to how you are to your son.

Speaker 2 (01:18:52):
Not a lot. Maybe maybe how I am women, maybe
some of that. So for perspective, I'm the ninth of
my mom's only child. I'm the ninth of eleven kids.

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
So your dad had a lot. Yeah the fucking so
is that what called the separation between your dad and
your mom?

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
And to a degree, I got two younger halfs.

Speaker 1 (01:19:25):
You do the math.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
But I think how my father carried himself professionally was
what rubbed off on me. I care about black people.
I use humor to try and tell our stories and
to humanize our experiences, to educate people who wouldn't have
otherwise paid attention to what we're going through, period full stop.

(01:19:50):
And if you look at the body of work that
I've built over the last decade, it would support that
thesis where it comes to parenting. House wasn't around a
lot because he was out working or he was with
his other family. You know, one of the toughest things
I had to You know, if you bring it back

(01:20:13):
to the breakup, right, you start thinking about what your
responsibility is to your child and how you plan to
build him up. What values am I going to give him?
And one of those things has to be how he
treats women. Well, he's going to learn that from seeing

(01:20:37):
how I treat women or how people treat his mother.
Whatever that dynamic is, I'm oblivious to it, so I
can only be concerned with the time correct with my
side of the equation. And the more I looked at love,
and the more I looked at how to show my

(01:20:59):
son love of my parents didn't sleep in the same room.
Truth of the matter is we in Memphis. I'm wilding out.
There's no man in the house. My mom reconciled with
my pops to make sure there was somebody in the
house to knock my ass out when I started jumping back.
And it's changed. Free rent, take the money you saved.

(01:21:19):
Put yourself through law school so you can get out
of this situation. And that's what my mama did. That's
what my mom worked on. That's what her focus was.
Grad school, degree, degreed degree. But most nights, my pops
wasn't home. And so when I started thinking about the
life I wanted to construct for my son, and I

(01:21:39):
started thinking about, well, damn, if I'm gonna show him love,
where did I see it? What the fuck? What was
my example of love?

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
You had a roof over your head, you had food
on the table.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
Yeah, but a lot of men think that's enough.

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):
That's how in the black community, that's how.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
We get close on your back, food and your belly,
roof over your head, what.

Speaker 1 (01:22:04):
I paid a coast to beat a boss? Denzel, he
told his son that very story.

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
I lived that. And so the more when I had
my son, the more I reflected on her, the more
I realized that the best example of love I had
was with my pops and and his other woman. It's
the best example of love. He loved her for whatever
issues he had with my mom, it was in love.

(01:22:32):
But when I really sit and think about how he
treated that woman, that's who he was out with. He
brought you around her to be around my younger brothers.

Speaker 1 (01:22:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
He had how many kids with this other woman to
two younger halfs Yeah, so you had to he had
to my.

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):
Older half siblings. We were never really that cool. We're
cool now, but in terms of every day seeing them,
you know, the two youngers, I saw them on the rig,
on the rag. He scooped me up. My pops will
scooped me up from soccer practice, go scoop them. We
go to dairy Quinton, stuff like that. And so I

(01:23:13):
had to call my two younger brothers and talk to
them about what was lifely. And this is a conversation
I never wanted to have with them, but I gotta
have this conversation if I'm gonna be better to my son. Hey, man,
walk me through what Pops was like at your crib
on the nights he didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:23:33):
Come, He wasn't with you your mom. What we're going through?

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
Damn. And they described a man I never met.

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
So so I don't you got an opportunity see him
when he was with your mom. So when they're explaining
to you, I mean he was home, he was at
the dinner table, he take it home.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
What going to their games? Bro? My god, Pops never
did that, and.

Speaker 1 (01:24:00):
So that man Roy that had to hurt.

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
You don't, but you don't unpack it. Imagine being thirty
eight in the delivery room unpacking that shit in real
time while you holding your newborn. Because these are things
I've never had to consider. I've never had to consider
showing him love because I am no kid. But now
I have a kid, and I go, well, damn, he
needs love. Okay, well I am learn. So who did

(01:24:25):
I My Aunt JP and Uncle Rick. They love each
other really, my aunt like a couple, but I ain't
around them on the regular. My posse is buried next
to that one. She died three years before my dad.
My dad got his and hers plots, plots, and we
didn't even know he was being buried next to her
until we was walking the cast. Get up the hill.

(01:24:47):
That's love. You can be mad about it or you
can be sad about it, and you can take the
game and figure out how to apply that to your child.
A woman he came home to every night, So if
nothing else, it gives me a blueprint of what I

(01:25:07):
should be looking for and what I should want out
of a woman, and what I should want within a relationship.
She loved his funky drawls, he loved hers, and that
wasn't the case at our crib. And that's just what
it was.

Speaker 1 (01:25:21):
When your father passed. Was your mom still alive? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:25:24):
Yeah, my mom's still alive right now. So you have
to look at and I really didn't unpack all of
this with my mom, but you have to look at
it as as I've looked at it. You're in Memphis,
you're in law school, or you're in grad school at
the time. I'm a latchkey kid, bro.

Speaker 1 (01:25:45):
We got there.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
We almost set the apartment complex on fire in the
third grade and almost got evicted. So I'm wild. So
you just live with this man and y'all just become
roommates and you become whatever Rashelle of yourself to get
through this knowing that your son at least has the
check in balance. It's and on the behavior side, it

(01:26:07):
was right. It worked. But like one of the hardest
things I have to do because I follow my two
younger brothers like love them, love them to death. I
follow them on social Father's Day, Pops' funeral day, Pop's birthday.

(01:26:29):
I usually don't go on social on those days because.

Speaker 1 (01:26:33):
They're talking about a man that you never knew, never.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
Knew they posting pictures with this man, and these the
old school polaroids, just got the date at the bottom.
I can look at the date of the picture and
tell you whether or not the heat was on at
our house because my parents was our again and Pops
had pulled you know, so the idea that I can't

(01:26:56):
even learn what type of father I could be from
watching through his lens. He was damaged. You were damaged,
and you sought comfort through women and sex, and you
were superb at your job, top of your game. Correspondence dinner.

(01:27:18):
When I got done, a bunch of black journalists who
were there at the correspondence dinner came up to me
and were telling me about how my pops gave he
was They were their first job was working for my dad.
Five six people, people who used to work at at
National Black Network, which eventually became a R and American

(01:27:40):
urban radio network. That company exists because of my fucking
pops and the other people he co founded with. And
they came up to shake my hand and to me
thank you, and like that was a level of respect
that I don't know if I'll ever do anything as
valuable as that. So you still you could be mad

(01:28:01):
at this man, or you can learn from it, because
either way you're still gonna be in his shadow. I
didn't go about roy Wood Junior until he died because
I knew it fucked with him. So it was the
only thing. It was the only thing that I knew
just fucked with money.

Speaker 1 (01:28:21):
Did you what did you think for a second? Roy
gave you his name.

Speaker 2 (01:28:26):
He gave you.

Speaker 1 (01:28:27):
He didn't give it to the others.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
Give me your time, your name, but the idea of
I remember, I came home in the year book, get
had roy Wood because your name is roy Wood Junior.
And I just didn't want to, like, I just hope
that like people didn't know or would assume that I

(01:28:50):
wasn't related. And then when he died, he died my
senior year of high school, and I was like, all right,
I carry it now. I carried a torch.

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
So you did grow up with some level of resentment
towards your father.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
A little, but it didn't it came out after I
had my son, because you start, you have your child,
bro and then you start thinking about everything you're going
to do with.

Speaker 1 (01:29:21):
Your son that your father didn't do with you, and.

Speaker 2 (01:29:24):
Then you realize you never did it with you, and
you're like, damn. The one thing he did give me
that I did appreciate. He made sure that I knew
who he was and what he stood for. And that's
through being able to shadow him and be around him.
But you only get in half of a person when

(01:29:46):
they get you at work, when you get your parents
at work. But I'm grateful for that, and I try
to do that with my son. You know, I don't
take him everywhere. He knows I do comedy, he knows
I'm on TV in some capacity, his classmates, parents, telephone
game gets back to him about his dad is just
the thing. But you know, I try to give him

(01:30:08):
a degree of space away from all of this, also
because it's politics and it's funky, and I just don't
want them be young. You deserve to be young, you know,
beyond man. But I don't think that resentment gets you anywhere.
If you have issues with your father, I think you
literally have to look at who the man was and

(01:30:31):
just pick the little pieces get rid of the rest.

Speaker 1 (01:30:37):
You're a kid, your mama cook something you didn't really
didn't like. If you put stuff in there, you just
pick out the pieces. You pick out, You pick out
the stuff that you like out of the ditch.

Speaker 2 (01:30:48):
My mama put bell peppers in her tuna, and when
I tell you, I used to pick them a little
bit of she and shitn't mental up?

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
Really, my grandmother did that with hamburger. He put onions
in the like in the meat. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):
Yeah, But that's why I'm grateful, bro, I'm grateful that
I had so many men that just that God put
in my life that poor knowledge of poor game, be
it once, be it multiple times like that was. I
think that's where I really learned how to love. Was

(01:31:27):
like just being in reflection of taking my own experiences
out of it. When have I seen a man be
kind and soft with a woman? Okay there, all right,
take the note I'm cool. I need to make sure
I feel that with her and then I can better

(01:31:47):
identify with it this is somebody I should be with.
And that helped it really did. Like I hate to
say it, but having a conversation with my younger brothers
it helped me immensely. And being able to of my son.

Speaker 1 (01:32:01):
But let me, did you when you talk to when
people say you know communication, you know be honesty, be honest,
be transparent. When you I don't know if you did
or you didn't, when you talk to your uncle or
you saw people that had been married and that had
been in love, does that better help you understand or
paint a picture of what you should be looking for

(01:32:24):
and a and a mate that you could potentially be
your wife.

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
My uncle, my uncle Derek, he lost his wife. This
was in the eighties, drunk driver. He heard the crash
from his house and it devastated him. And I remember
going to my aunt Mary's funeral and seeing my uncle
cry over the casket and he had you know, he
had a He had about a five ten year stretch

(01:32:50):
after that because he's also ex military, dropping some PTSD
in that mix along with grieving as a widower. He
had a rough stretch. Yes, I just say that he had.
He had a really rough stretch that he came out of.
And seeing what he became without her helped me understand
what she was to him. That's love. And I think

(01:33:17):
through those painful moments, you're able to mind something that's beautiful. Man.
I'm not you know, we all wish we could have
got a better hand with our parents. I don't care
what kind of parents you got. You wish there was
more of this or more that. But you know what
really helped me was going on finding your roots and

(01:33:40):
learning so much new information about my dad and the
idea that oh, I get it. You lost your dad.
You ain't had no game. Nobody gave you game. I
was about to say, then then you get a debilitative
injury in high school. My pops got hit by a
car chasing behind the girl that just broke up with

(01:34:02):
hip replacements the rest of his life, walk with a
limp the rest of his life. How do you think
that informed his opinion of women? What you think walking
with a limp did to his confidence for the rest
of his life and how he viewed women. I don't know.
There's a lot of there's a lot of questions that
are just that will forever be unanswered because most of

(01:34:23):
the people that can answer him from his side are dead.

Speaker 1 (01:34:26):
Because I was going to ask you, I was gonna like,
because a lot of times we learned how to love
through how we were loved. You know your dad, And
I was going to ask, I said, did you ever
talk to you ever? Did you ever ask your dad?
How was his father to him, your grandfather to him,
and so forth and so on. So it would probably
give you a better picture of how but you just like,
you know what, I don't know a whole lot about

(01:34:48):
this fatherhood. I just know I want to be a
better dad to my son than what my father was.

Speaker 2 (01:34:54):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:55):
That's it. I don't know how this thing gonna shape out,
but I did know.

Speaker 2 (01:34:59):
That I'll start with that base level thing. I will
be present and I will you know, And and for
the life of my relationship with his mother, you know,
it was I was gone, Like when I traveled, Hey,
I'm sorry I got to go, but I would explain
why I'm going, where I'm going, what I'm doing, And
I still do that to this day, even when we
broke up, Set him down, walk them through. Hey, here's

(01:35:21):
what's happening with that. Just so you know, me and
her ain't got nothing to do with me and you.
Everybody's still good, cool, And but.

Speaker 1 (01:35:30):
That was a lot. That's heavy. You got a new born,
you quit the job, and you just broke up with
the mother of your child. That's a lot going on.

Speaker 2 (01:35:40):
Well, he's about six or seven at the time of
the breakup. But it's still a lot, yes, And so
there is a pressure in his life. There's a pressure
of providing that. I don't think men talk about enough,
and I don't think women necessarily I'm wonna say, don't care.

(01:36:02):
But they have their own battles as well. They got
their own workplace challenges as well. So I understand you
got your issues, but I'm over here fighting this fire
over here. Good luck with your fire. I think that
I remember some nights watching my son's sleep when he
was younger, and I would be up at night and

(01:36:24):
just be walking around the house and to that flower
moment where it's like, I live in New York City, Bro,
I live in New York City. I have a solid job.
My family is fed, they're sleeping safe. I remember when

(01:36:47):
I came to New York in nineteen ninety nine and
I was here for three days and I could only
afford one meal because I needed the rest of the
money for tolls to get back down Alabama, praying that
somebody at the comedy club would offer me a wing
or a fry so I could eat that day. And

(01:37:12):
now I'm in this city. I got furniture, I got
a job. My picture on phone boves I got an
hour special coming out, and I'm watching my son sleep
peacefully with none of the cares that I had. And
it lasts for about twenty seconds, and then the next
start is half of am I going to keep this

(01:37:34):
all together? And that's the impulse that drives me. That's
the impulse that gives you everything you read at the
top of the show on my intro, And I don't
know if that's for better or for work.

Speaker 1 (01:37:50):
No. I sell for the same thing because I can't
turn my mind off.

Speaker 2 (01:37:55):
I wake up immediately and there's twenty ways this could
go wrong, this thirty ways this other thing could go wrong.
But if I can control it and be in charge
of it, I realize what I lack is control. I'm
a control freak to a degree. I need opportunities that

(01:38:17):
are that aboard you, that that'll afford me that. I'm
thankful for seeing that. But it is a network all
TV shows in one day. It will hopefully I'll see
it coming or I'll have time. But in case I.

Speaker 1 (01:38:36):
Don't, you have something already. You've already got a book
Garden Planet and something else is about this.

Speaker 2 (01:38:42):
Let me get this YouTube shit straight. For twenty twenty six,
I already know what I want to do. Get this
book right, sell that book, get a script on that,
and that way I know my son can continue to
sleep comfortably. That drives me, and I know some people
will consider that unhealthy. But if it's gotten you more

(01:39:02):
successful every year than the year before since nineteen ninety eight,
doing something right, doing something right?

Speaker 1 (01:39:10):
What have you learned about.

Speaker 2 (01:39:11):
Money that it's just money, It's not gonna make you happy.
There's definitely a peace of mind you need to have
with it. I'm probably a little reckless, but I think

(01:39:32):
my recklessness comes from stupid shit uber and when I
could have walked, Yeah, it's like eight blocks and it's
I don't feel like it. They come get me.

Speaker 1 (01:39:48):
I'm going to call.

Speaker 2 (01:39:48):
Them, Yeah, but I don't. I don't have a lot
of vices in that regard, Like even with women. It's
not like I'm spending a bunch of money on a
million dates and going to exact locations and ship like that.
I don't wear jewelry. I get nice sneakers. Hulu paid

(01:40:09):
for these bodies. You're crazy. Now when I get an
hour special, they allocate money for wardrobe. I spend it
all on the shoe. Ankle up, I got it. It's
already in the closet.

Speaker 1 (01:40:26):
I know what. I'm aware.

Speaker 2 (01:40:27):
But the shoe, you're gonna pay for that, So I don't.
You know. My relationship with money is. I would say
it's it's decent. I'm not rich in the least, but
I'm blessed. And you know, I am the family member
that family members call.

Speaker 1 (01:40:51):
Responsibility.

Speaker 2 (01:40:52):
Though it's a blessing and a curse.

Speaker 1 (01:40:54):
It is. But I've always wanted me. I've always wanted
that I was the and my brother had a serious injury,
and so I took on the responsibility. And I remember
telling my grandmother on her death bed that I got it.
My sister and my sister. My sister's here right now,
and she had a conversation with me. She was telling

(01:41:14):
I had this conversation with my grandmother in June. My
sister had the very conversation with my grandmother in April.
I didn't know about it until she told me. She said, Shannon, Grannie,
like one of my cousins, was in the room and
she asked my grandmother and what's going She said, hey,

(01:41:35):
maybe what's wrong? And my grandmother said I'm dying and
I don't want to leave y'all. My sister said, Granny,
it's okay for you to go. I'm gonna be okay.
Spanky's gonna be okay. To my brother, Shannon's gonna be okay.
Shannon's gonna make sure mama's okay. Everything's gonna be taken

(01:41:59):
care of. I didn't know Roy. My sister had this
conversation with my grandmother in April. I come back along
in June. The guy's doing report a story because I'm
going into the Hall of Fame that August, so he's following.
He's following me around. We go to the old house,
we go to the old high school. When we get
back to the nursing home, the retirement facility, my grandmother

(01:42:22):
is crying uncontrollably. So I stopped the guy and I
go in and she's crying and I hold in my
arm that I look at it. I said, granted, I said,
so I already knew what it was. I said, Grant,
it's okay. I got it. I said, you and Papa,
y'all did what y'all was supposed to do. I got Libby,
I got Spanky, and I got mama, don't even worry

(01:42:44):
about it. A week later, Roy she was gone. She
needed her baby to tell her that he had it.
Once I told her, I let her my be at ease.
My sister called me. She says, shut up, she's gone.
I said, for real, Libby, She said, yep. She told
my sister and my mom, because my sister would go

(01:43:07):
up there every day, theater bather. That's not a responsibility.
My sister did that for two years. Every single day.
We go up there. Make sure she ate a food,
make sure you had a change your clothes, do everything.

Speaker 4 (01:43:19):
Stay on top of them folks. About five o'clock, my
grandma said, Libby, you and you and you and Alice,
y'all go. That's my mom, Mary, Alice name nothing, Mama.
She said, y'all go home.

Speaker 1 (01:43:34):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:43:34):
I can't.

Speaker 1 (01:43:35):
I can't get no rest with y'all here. She sent
him home, probably around five five thirty. They called my
sister six.

Speaker 2 (01:43:45):
That was it, Libby. It's Mary gone.

Speaker 1 (01:43:50):
Man. So to hear you say that, the responsibility of
your siblings and the family, you're who they call. I
know it. That's like I've lived that life for the
last thirty years.

Speaker 2 (01:44:03):
My only beef is that. And I understand this because
my mom used to think I was sleep but I
could listen to her making the money calls at night. Hey,
girl's choice. I wouldn't call you if I needed blah
blah blah. So I understand the courage it takes to

(01:44:25):
admit you need help. But nigga, don't wait until the tow.

Speaker 1 (01:44:30):
Truck Isn't you know he got it. He gotta have
to know.

Speaker 2 (01:44:34):
You old on the fucking car for two months, Nigga.
Now the tow truck is outside, and now I'm trying
to venmo a named Keith. Yeah, just like, hey, gay,
the toad he out here right now. He want to
talk to you. What do you want to talk to
me about it? And now he got my car. Meanwhile,

(01:44:54):
I'm on the phone with you. And then if somebody
took it to me, you got three minutes. We're gonna
add that. The shot is live in three minutes. Come
on back over to this set. I may work, and
I'm like, literally then more. There's times on The Daily
Show where I've just said, have vienmo and put well, yes, Trevor, Noah,
I'll tell you what's going on with the Republicans. Like
that part of it I don't like, but I understand

(01:45:17):
where the hesitancy comes from. I wish, man, I wish
i'd have had that like luxury of that like last
conversation because prost take cancers? What took my pops and
my pops when you're sixteen, you don't even know what
you're supposed to be asking, bro, and cancer, like the

(01:45:42):
last year of cancer is just such a nasty, terrible thing.
My post became very mean, like very I'm just angry,
which I just wrote on I ain't take offense to it.
I didn't do shit to you today. You just snapping,
all right, I guess whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:46:02):
I remember.

Speaker 2 (01:46:09):
The last conversation I have with my dad. I remember
he watched Jeopardy. That was always we'd watch Jeopardy. My
pops will watch local news because he was mentoring a
lot of the anchors on the local affiliates. So he
will watch everybody's anchoring and then call them and give

(01:46:29):
them critiques or whatever. Yeah, give them feedback at the feedback.
We watched Jeopardy. And we're watching Jeopardy, and I make
him a baked potato and I give it to him.
Takes a nibble after about an hour, he give it back.
He ain't really touched the appetite though, and he looks
at it. He looks at me, and he goes, I did,

(01:46:51):
all right, didn't I? And I look at the baked potato, like, yeah,
you did? All right? You know I'm lying, but all right.
Next day I come home. He's in hospice and my
older brother's crib and so, you know, for the most part,
I lived my life after that. I didn't go visit

(01:47:11):
him every day because it's hospice, and a lot of
the time in the hospital, when I was there, it
would be a lot of the other women. So if
my mom's was there and then it's some side chick,
that's weird, you know what I'm saying. So I would

(01:47:32):
go solo, and that became weird. About a month later,
he dies and we're at the funeral and we're walking
away from Nick. We were leaving the bear, we're going
back to the limos or whatever, and my older sister, Brenda,
she comes up to me as we're walking down the
hill and she's like, of all my siblings, all my

(01:47:54):
half siblings, she's like the most spiritual and she's just
some God and the scripture says, you know daddy loved you,
and I know you may not have always fucked up,
but Daddy loved you, and no matter what, just remember
he did the best he could. And that shit hit
me like a fucking I'm Matt Trump, bro. Like he

(01:48:19):
asked me, I did all right. He wasn't asking about
the baked potato. He was asking me how he did
raising me. And I missed the fucking window. Bro. Not
only did I missed the window, I told him he
did all right, because he probably thought I was talking

(01:48:39):
about how he raised me. I was talking about the
baked potato.

Speaker 1 (01:48:45):
And so had you had that wind up the window
that he that he left open, had you knew, what
would you have told him?

Speaker 2 (01:48:53):
I don't know, but I wouldn't have let him off
the hook.

Speaker 1 (01:48:55):
Like that, even in the situation, the tradition he was in.

Speaker 2 (01:49:00):
There's a soft way. Well it's not even a criticize.
It's more questions than anything. I never thought about that,
I said, Damn. I never thought about what I would
have asked or what I would have said. I don't
think I had the wherewithal or the scope of knowledge.

(01:49:25):
Keep in mind, I'm born, my parents are separated. I'm
born in New York. My parents are separated. Within a year,
my mom moves to Mississippi. My whole mama side from Clarksdale,
so she moved to Memphis to go to school and
be close. So she got the babysitter network with her siblings, right.
So I grew up never knowing my father other than

(01:49:46):
the dude who come to visit once a month and
I go see him for a month in the summer
through third grade. So the idea of a father was
just these nigga's a guest star in me and my
mama sitcom and my mama to start. Daddy just a
neighbor who come in and wave from time to time.
Then when we move in together in Birmingham, y'all don't

(01:50:08):
really sleep. Y'all in the same room. We don't do
any family functions other than breakfast on Sunday. Breakfast was sacred,
but outside of that, you're not home. Everybody work different schedules.
He's a morning radio man. He gone before I'm up
for school and by the time I come home from school,
he back out at night to do his jazz show
and then to hit the bars and you know, socialize

(01:50:29):
hit the lounges and all and drink.

Speaker 1 (01:50:30):
Some of it.

Speaker 2 (01:50:30):
You're like he out there right. So we never kept
the same clock. So I'm not even crossing you in
the hallway for you to give me game, just off
the nature of our schedules. So you take something like that,
and then it becomes all need to be around more

(01:50:51):
because I've learned and like I tried doing like mentorship
programs and stuff. It's not the right person literacy sports.
I'll give money to mentor because what I found, at
least what I believe, is that male guidance. It's these

(01:51:13):
microscopic moments that happen. It's not a full three four
hour day. Let's go bowling, let's go where you might
ask something or not. You just have to be around.
And then the moment your child shows a window of
wanting some knowledge to jump in. And so the weeks
I have my son, I schedule my life differently. We

(01:51:38):
getting that meal. I might go back out in these
clubs and tell my jokes tonight, but first set, it's
not gonna be till nine, because I want you into
bed eight thirty and we're gonna talk. Baby. Sit pull
up eight twenty five I'm out the door, but the
idea of just not being around as much as I can,
I'm trying to fight that, bro, because I don't want

(01:52:00):
to be a guest star in his fucking sitcom. That's
my biggest fear with my son is that I become
the dude that's always gone, oh, we provided, and then
he the one sitting here with you talking about motherfucker.
I won't at the time. So the only way to
create that is to work like a psychopath at building

(01:52:22):
something from the ground up for yourself that you control
that is not susceptible to corporate mergers, that's not susceptible
to an administration leaning on your supervisors getting them to
fire you. That takes time. So I'm sorry, I can't
go on the date you want me to go on
with you, or I can't be present in the way
you want because this is paramount right now. It won't

(01:52:46):
always be that way, but that's what is because I
know on the other side of this is growth and freedom, man,
and I know I can do that.

Speaker 1 (01:52:57):
This concludes the first half of my conversation. Part two
is also posted and you can access it to whichever
podcast platform you just listen to part one on just
simply go back to club Shay profile and I'll see
you there

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Club Shay Shay - Roy Wood Jr. Part 1

Episode Transcript

Host

Shannon Sharpe

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