December 9, 2025 • 60 mins
This week on Thanks Dad, Ego sat down with six-time Emmy-nominated actor and singer, Tituss Burgess! Bring your tissues for this one – though maybe it’s just allergies? Ego and Tituss discuss everything from childhood to fame, and these two Pisces get into all of it. They reflect on growing into their names and even debate the perfect room temperature for cuddling. To wrap up, Tituss shares his secrets to avoiding burnout and making friends in New York City.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I'm trying to figure out Hi. First of all, Hi,
I'm trying to figure out what is going on for
a person when you say, hey, where are you from?
And they go all over? And I understand some people
do move a lot as kids and as young people.
I totally get that. That makes perfect sense to me.
But I'm sort of like shorthand think fast, where are
(00:32):
you from?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Like?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Where are you from? It could be you lived in
North Carolina and then you moved to Massachusetts when you
were older. I don't know, but you know, where are
you from? But people seem to dodge that question. Not always,
but every once in a while, people dodge that question.
And this isn't about like xenophobia. We might cut that out.
(00:53):
I don't know. I'm just in case you're thinking that.
I just mean it's just interesting. You guys know those
people where you go where are you from? And they
go all over? And I'm like, yeah, but like, just
say a place, where'd you go to high school? And
maybe I should change the question. Maybe I'm the problem.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
It's me.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I should say where did you go to high school?
But don't tell me the school because I don't know
ice high school's off hand but like, what city was
your high school in? That's what I'll do. But I
am really curious about the people and their whole I'm
from all over, and I'm like, why are you making
me probe you like this? Maybe you're like, bitch, stop
asking questions, say that to me instead, But I'm from
(01:29):
all over. I'm like, I guess I'll ask a follow up,
where'd you go to high school? What city? I'll start
with that next time. Anyway, just thinking about these interactions
I have with people, and I'm like, what, hey, just
say a place, but also do what you want and
I'll change my question and I'll see how it works
and i'll report back. People. So happy you're listening to
(01:50):
this episode, So happy you're here. I cannot wait to
be speaking with Titus Burgess in just a little bit.
It's I bet it's gonna be good. I'm excited. So
watch this as I do that, we need to do
an introduction. I want to address something first that she
(02:11):
might be wondering. You even acknowledge it initially about my beat.
You look great, Thank you so much. It's a beat.
It's a beat today.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Are you not normally assaulted?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
No? No, no, I'm going to an event later tonight,
and I didn't want to have to sit and glab.
I go exactly, and so I'm I'm actually made up
for event, but also for you. Oh come on, I
want to I wasn't come out here no makeup.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
On listen, you look beautiful either way.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Agrees A beat don't matter.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Sometimes sometimes you could get from my face and get
beat in such a fashion that it becomes a problem.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Like and not in a like coat.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, like put her in a yeah, put her under
because it's doing too much. Thank you. I just wanted
to acknowledge because it's giving contours, giving smoke, it's.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Giving everything great. And also I'm not crying. I'm just
my alergies are like really doing. I was gonna act
for the past week, Like I walk outside and just
like I can't stop the tears. So Cleriton and those
are laughing at me, like and and.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Now I can't. You know, Zertich is one of our sponsors,
and so now we can't. I'm kidding, kidding. I take
a zerotic every day.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Does that work?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
It's hard to say. I even got allergy shots at
one point. So this this little segment is for the
allergy community.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Perfect.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I took, I took. I take their take every day.
I do flow naise every day. And I got allergy shots,
but they were kind of I thought they worked.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And then because we live in such an unsanitary environment.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Potentially yes, and there's a lot of debris to irritate
our interiors. And that's that sounds like an official doctor
every to irritate.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
All Right, you'll go to talk to the nurse and
then come back. I need to do an intro for you,
all right. My next guest is a six time Emmy
nominated actor and singer. You've seen him recently as Mary
Todd Lincoln and the Tony Award winning play Oh Mary,
Songs for a New World and The Cat in the
Hat out in November twenty. That's coming out soon.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Titus Burgess should have correct you know, it didn't win
the Tony. Okay, so it was felt surprise nominated.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It was nominated, though, Okay, whoever wrote this, I'm getting
up there going okay to share that gotta be fired
someone it job.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Okay. No, we're not rejoicing people saying somebody wrote this though.
This is the setup and this is another it's a
hit job. All right, I'm going to do it again,
and they should keep that in because I want people
to know this shit is not perfect. Right. That's the
problem with entertainment is we try to make everything look perfect,
in my opinion, and.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
It trickles down into real life.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yes, and you're like, everything's got to look and feel perfect.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
But you don't even realiz that you're operating until that
governance on autopilot. But that is our day to day
and it's unrealistic.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I when did you realize you were operating in that way?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Oh? I see, perhaps around forty my body started responding
to stimuli differently and to people's influence differently, and I
began to have this knee jerk reaction to being well,
I call it brutally honest. But I'll just say honest
because people take it as brutality because most of the
(05:28):
world operates in these strange niceties.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Oh, talk to me about it, and let's talk about
the difference between nice and kind.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And I don't know what to do with that.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I know I don't either, So we're family, frank.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yes, by all means, yes, you know I know what
to do. I grew up in a family that they
were blunt, and we just said what you meant, that's
what we meant. And there was no filter and there
was no buffer, no cushion, you know, no softening the blow.
And eventually that became comforting.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
M that's what It's familiarity. It's yeah, it's what It's
how you were raised. And it's like, this is what
I know, and so this is now how I operate.
And now that I'm in a world outside of this community,
it's being received a differently.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
And even when I got to New York, I thought
it was going to be pardon me. I thought it
would resemble the way I grew up. But I realized
the articulated the influence of PC culture had done a
number on New York City culture.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
It made its way here, it made.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Its way here, and you know, I was searching for,
you know, the funk off, you know. Yeah. But and
now what I feel has happened is that PC culture
is gone, and political culture has influenced our day to
(06:56):
day culture. And now we have returned to a more
frank and Byron. But it's frank in the name of
cruelty and not frank in the name of me being
clear about what my intentions are with you, and that
is disappointing.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
It's that's tough to navigate, I feel like, and I
it's interesting that some people conflate that frankness and directness
with cruelty just inherently, but it's like, oh no, my
intent is to be direct with you and to be
efficient and make sure you're understanding what I'm communicating and
so that you're not like waffling and unclear about what
(07:29):
it is I'm trying to say to you. I'm not
here to hurt you. I'm just here to communicate because TikTok.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, my I think the thing that I want most
out of life is not to waste time, because there's
still little of it. And if the closest route is
or the way to bridge the gap is to be frank,
then that's what I'm gonna do. And I want you
to do with me, because I don't want you to
waste time.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, you want it to do and I do have
shit to do and it's doing. No go to a
gall to night, but first I need to intro you again.
And we have to also see to it that whoever
wrote this initially has to be fired tonight. You who
I'm kidding?
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
My next guest is an Emmy nominated actor and singer.
You've seen him recently as Mary Todd Lincoln in the
Tony nominated play Oh Mary. Songs for a New World,
The Cat and the Hat out November twenty twenty six.
Titus Burgess, how did we do? Baby?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
You're doing so fact checked good.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And we're good. Okay, Okay, So now you grew up
in Georgia. That's great, right, So you were people were
being frank in Georgia. That is interesting to me because
I equate like the southern hospitality with a little bit
of the nice cities that is more of.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
A white people thing. Okay, Black people didn't have time
for that. And I'm not talking like I grew up
in the civil rights air because I didn't. But you know,
my I grew up in the sticks in a town
called Lexton, Georgia, and all of the diggings people will
(09:00):
see at Ins, Georgia, and that's where I went to school,
and my parents are still there and all that stuff.
But I grew up on a farm. We raised chickens, hogs,
chickens hogs, and I love farm life. My mom and
(09:21):
I lived with my grandparents, her mom and dad and
funny stories. My mother I thought she was my sister
because from birth to about seven years old, I heard
her call my grandmother mom. Okay, yeah, so I called
(09:42):
grandma mom. Oh so when my mom. I'll never forget
this about Oh I was six years old. I forget
what I had done. I'm an only child. And and
also pisces. We can get.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Pisces is everywhere. You're tending not to cry and it's allergies,
but it's actually tears. He's emotional today. That's right there.
It's my allergy.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
But we can'tnot be.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I feel everything deeply.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, you have to report on it, yes, yes, like
I might if I don't get this out of the way.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Oh yeah. My sister's like, you're sober both you need
to talk things out and talk it through and don't
you And she's like, no, I process internally. She goes,
you're an external processor. I'm an internal processor, and I'm
like you should be an external processor like me.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
It sings out like I don't know. I don't know
how it's to be even tell people that I date,
which okay, I also talk.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Well, I know because we talked the same way. This
is going to be a chaotic episode. We did the
intro five minutes into the conversation, so blame it on
astrology today. So wait, this thing happened. I'm going to
I'll remember the dating, but six years old. A thing
happened when you were six pisces, my mom child.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Ye, my mom tried to reprimmand me and she was
giving me a little spanking. And I said, I'm gonna
tell my mama, and she why did I do that?
She looked at me and she said what And I said,
I'm gonna tell my MoMA, and she goes, I am
your mama, and then she just took a beat and
I could see the whole scene. I could see her
(11:19):
recalibrate in real time. And I swear to God, I
go the The next week, my mom had an apartment
in Athens, Georgia, and we had moved out.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Oh my goodness, because she knew she oh, he doesn't understand.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
He doesn't understand.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
It's it's like being like, can I speak to the manager?
And the person's like, I am exactly, that's exactly right. Wow,
and so ready to.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Because I thought I had been ripped away from my parents,
and it took about a year and a half or so. Well,
you should also know that every summer, okay, since I
was an only child, every summer up until I was
in high school old enough to say on my own,
I would go and live with my grandparents because my
(12:03):
mom worked a nine to five and she wasn't I couldn't,
you know, take care of myself. She didn't want to
pawn me off on her sisters or brother. She rarely
let me spend the night with anyone else. And so
I went to spend the night with my grandparents, and
so I had this relationship with them that is deeper
than the the other. You know, forty of my first
(12:25):
cousins had and I'm not joking, I have like forty first, guy.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Forty first, how many siblings did your mom have?
Speaker 2 (12:31):
She had three sisters and four brothers.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Okay, And then are you including four cousins on your
dad's side. Also, when you say, oh.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
No, dad's dead, no, he's very much alive.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
He's alive but dead to you, Okay, it's thanks dad.
I also want to interrupt this. This is regularly scheduled
programming to say, not only are Titus and I both prices,
we're both wearing white shirts. What does it mean?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
What it mean? Transparency?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
It means, oh yeah, we're going to be transparent here,
We're going to be friend on this one.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Okay, tell me what's my biological father. My sperm donor
lived about twelve minutes away from my mom and I
my entire life. And he has a son, another son
who's older than I am, who was in and out
of jail. My dad was not great with money, didn't
(13:25):
like to pay child support. I remember this one event
where he knocked down This was in our my mom's
and i's first apartment, knocked down the door and storry
to choke her because she had called him asking about
(13:49):
child support. We had just moved. She did to the
additional support, and the phone conversation escalated, escalated, escalated, and
then about ten minutes later and I I just had
they're frozen because I didn't quite know what to do
and what was I gonna do?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, you were sevenish, right.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
My mom and I've never talked about this. Is my
dad and I have never just spoken about this, but
I remember.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
You remember, and so how did that de escalate. How
did that situation end?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
My mom ga asking for hair, and my dad sort
of he's not my father, my stepdad is my dad,
my biological father, sort of realizing coming to his senses this, this,
this is enough. And I was screaming, and I think
the terror, you know, Emmy must have you know, gotten
(14:43):
somewhere inside whatever's left of his paternal instinct to say,
oh this is scary. You know, I should stop. Anyways,
I this is you know, this type of frankness has
only happened with I'm gonna forget his.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Name, Mark Marrin. Yes, what the f And now his
podcast is so maybe this can be Yes fill the void.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It started before we were starting, were talking about I
do that.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Do you think my eye contact is intense?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
No, I don't care. It's it is intense, but it
feels familiar to me, so it doesn't scare me.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Okay, I only know.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I don't know how to talk about the weather me.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Either, though. That's why I have a podcast like this,
Like I do comedy, but I'm like, let's be for real.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I think what do you make of it? Okay? So
your your comedy has such an interesting subtectual energy okay,
and I love it, and I think it is fueled
with honesty and just a shred of the truth enough
that it's funny because it's true, right, And and the
(15:43):
way you represent the different sects of African American culture,
which you are not African American, correct, I.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Am African American American. I am African American. I'm for
Generation Nigerian, but I grew up born and raised in Baltimore,
so like that, but I am African American.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
True Africans.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Get some of them, do you know? I can't speak
to their experience, but I'm I'm not I genuinely I'm
not them. I'm a black woman.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Check.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Proud of that. African American woman, check, proud of that.
Her generation Nigerian woman, check, proud of that. Like, so,
I don't relate to the part that no part of
me wants to deny any part of my identity. I'm
like very proud to be So perhaps maybe that is.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
What they are experiencing when they have such a strong
response to being lumped in with.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah people, yeah, I don't. I mean, I'm like, there's
no lumping I'm like, I'm all of these things. I'm
all of these things at once, and I don't. They
just don't resonate with much of the distinction. For myself,
I'm just sort of like, I'm all of the things.
Right When you're like, you're African American, I'm like, literally, yeah,
African American, Nigerian American. But I don't feel the need
to be like, but I'm I'm this, I'm only this,
(16:57):
and I only want to be seen as this. I'm
all these things. Nigerian parents born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Like.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
How can do you go back to Nigeria.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I haven't been back to Nigeria since I was nineteen.
It's been a long time, and I'm what twenty three,
I'm twenty Yeah, I'm not twenty three. But I do
have a lot of family there. Thank you. I was
hoping you would say I do have. Some of my
mom's siblings are there.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Do you talk to them?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Do you I talked to my aunts and uncles. Yeah,
some of them are in Jersey, some are in England.
My cousin is a famous soccer player for Arsenal Moms.
My mom's sisters is he Hotah?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Is the wad to say?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
I can't say that about my cousin. He's a handsome
young man, but they're like he and his brothers are
just like upstanding young men that make me really truly
excited and hopeful if you will, for the future future
young men, and like they're just such lovely and wise
individuals and they're younger than I am, and I'm like,
I love talking to them.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
And do you think that's a familial influence that are
all y'all are just just natural born intuitive thinkers and
do gooders in the world.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I don't know if everyone is, but I think a
lot of my my, my siblings, my cousins, I think are.
But I'm deeply impressed with these British boys. I genuinely am,
Like they just are deeply, deeply impressive to me. But
I feel like people quite literally don't give a shit
what's going on with me. No, I don't understand. No,
because it's the tightest Burgess episode. So I'm like, I'm
(18:21):
you know what I mean, But you're doing what I
do because I'm like, well, I'll help you because I
have a couple more questions. No, no, no, no, no, I'm
not We're dancing. We're dancing, and it's not so there's
no leader. It's something else.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So I'll tell you something else. I don't know if
you have this. I have great difficulty being the center
of attention.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I do have it. I know that's strange to be like,
oh and I have a podcast and I'm a performer,
but you relate and they're like no, I get very
like don't look at me. And then also people perceive
it as like a different thing, like attitude, and I'm like,
it's actually the little.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
People. People misconstrue a natural in all right. So while
we are external processors, we are natural introverts and I
am a natural born recluse. I don't need a lot
of outside simulation, nor do I want it, nor do
(19:13):
I want a lot of attention. Now, the difference is
we know how to handle the attention when it.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And I only do sometimes.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
But yes, well yes, but what I mean is when
don't confuse me being the lead of a show or
or the having me my own podcast or anything with
my name on. I'm number one of the call sheet
with me wanting to form a walk in life to
look like that.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
And that is that's actually a word and a sermon
right now that you are that's true. I do resonate
with that. That is completely. That feels very accurate to me.
So you are not necessarily interested in being center of
attention when people give you compliments like it, because that.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Means they love me. If they didn't pay attention, I'd
be fucked. Okay, But but I don't seek it out
and I just don't need. That is not what fuels me.
That's not what I don't like to go to two parties.
I don't enjoy the red carpet. I don't care to
give quick sound, and I hate going on TV shows
because I'm not funny.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Are you mad to be here right now? Said? You
heard it?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
By the way, because I because long form, I know
what to do with it right right.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Also, I didn't actually think you hated it. I just
was like it would be maybe funny if you did
say I'm not happy to be here with you.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It's different, Yeah, this is different. I don't feel the
the the pressure to beyond.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yes, I'm so glad, and I don't want I want
the I want the real Titus. I relate to so
much of what you're saying. I really I feel it.
I'm feeling it so much. Now you said you don't
want to go to parties. You don't like doing the
red carpet. Red carpet is really intense and people don't
talk about it's not so.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
You get to dress up and I'm like, look at me,
you think I want to put on Well.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Also, the reason I have a full beat on, like
to the gods right now, is because I'm like, I
don't want to sit for this again. Later. I'm like,
one done, let it be done. And so I have
a thing to go to five hours from now, and
I'm like, do it in a way where I can
have it five hours from now and not have to
sit again, because I also I don't I don't say
I hate sitting for glam, but it's like it starts.
(21:14):
It becomes a whole production to show up to one
red carpet for one second, and it's and it's like
you better nail it, and you better nail that pose,
and you better get the is.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
The output of energy, or rather the conservation and desire
for preservation of energy that is so intrinsically a part
of who we are that participating in something, even just
sitting there is give you energy, you know what I mean?
And if I got to go do this thing. Then
I need you to make this as fast as possible.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Because I'm like, I'm using so much energy here, the
energy budget, there's never there's never enough hours in the day. Yeah,
it's a song. Someone sent me a song called energy budget,
and one day it's this woman is declaring various various
uh things about her energy budget and what she doesn't
have time for. It's more it's a song. She's actually
(22:05):
just talking and it's mantras.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
It feels like I love it.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
I'll send it to you. But you don't like going out,
you don't like doing that whole thing dating. You were
going to say something about you being an external processor,
how you're dating, right, So.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I think I need to get like, I think they
need to ask my astrologist to do my chart again,
to tell me what I'm most compatible with, because you know,
my so, I was just I was in a ten
ten year relationship that ended four years ago. He and
I are best friend, he's family, and Pablo taught me
so much about myself. Okay, and so I helped Pablo
(22:42):
go to school, to school for psychology. Papa brought me
this book called HSP Highly Sensitive People m and and
that acronym is a bit of an over simplification of
what the actual condition is. And it basically there's a
percentage of the twenty percent of the population, and medical
(23:04):
experts are divided on whether or not this is a
real thing or not. But there's a precentage of the
population that is overstimulated, that processes a lot of information
at once, and our natural impaths and to a fault
where you can't determine decipher what energy is yours and
(23:26):
what has been deposited or inherited without your conscious I
accept this as my own or not my own. And
one of the things that occurred while we were together
was the more I realized what was happening, and when
I realized that he and I were not compatible. Oh,
it was almost like he gave you the book to
(23:47):
leave him.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Oh wow, he had no idea. Okay, what did you
read in the book that made you be that I
can't be with Pablo An.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I read the whole book and it was a slow
gestation of this is who I am, has nothing, has
less to do with Pava and who who I, thanks
to him, had realized I always was and I am
now becoming more of and that is the ability to
fight for myself, speak up for myself, say out loud,
(24:16):
I don't, I can't be here, and not just roll
over and take it. Because we are we put other
people's feelings and needs before our own. Even to say, Pablo,
I can't sleep with you and not I me like
have sex, I mean like I have to I have
to go be in a bed by myself, because even
at rest, that is an exchange of energy when you
are in the same space with someone, and it is
so important, which is why you want your beat five
(24:40):
hours before in a way, because sitting in that chair
is absorbing the energy of the person who is doing it.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Wait, Titus, am I an HSP? Do you think I think?
Not me discovering I'm an HSP? Because well, also, I
don't like sleepovers. I don't like sleepovers at all. I like,
I need to wake up in my I need to wait.
I don't care if I'm getting home at seven am.
Someone be like just stay here. I'm like, I have
to wake up in my.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
It's not about sanitation sanitizing. It is wanting not to
have to sanitize the energy. Oh oh, a space that
you are not.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Wait, why do legitimately I need the book. I need
the book. And mind you, when you said you have
an astrologer, I have been known to say that I
don't like I'll shout out that I'm a Pisces all
the time, and then I'll be like, I don't really
believe in astrology. Fun, heyha, I like to read the horoscopes.
If I see a moon omens on Instagram or something,
or astrology or or co star, I'm like, I want
(25:38):
to read it. I want to see if this applies.
So I'm not like a hard no, but it's like
a thing that's like playful for me. But for you,
you have an astrologer. When did you start to get
into astrology and what was that journey for you?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Well, I've always like read people's horoscopes and such whatever,
and I always seemed rather accurate, and I would read
more than one person's recanting of a particular sign on
a particular day, okay, to cross reference and figure out
if any of this has any merit to it. I
don't do this often. I do like once a year
where I get to read my chart or whatever, but
(26:10):
I'm always and I also have a a spiritual guide.
Her name is Joya Okay, and she people what is
going on?
Speaker 1 (26:18):
She says, he's a piss he's crying. He's got a
spiritual guid in astrologer, I need it. Okay, past and
you have a pastor.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Her name is doctor Jackie Lewis.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Doctor Jackie Lewis, Middle.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Collegiate church down in the Lower East Side. Okay, with
all these people because they all offer different things. You know,
you have your pediatrician, you have your gonecologists, you have
your they're all doctors, but they're all different and so
but if you have.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
A pediatrician, you don't have a guy because I'll just say,
but you might have your internal medicine physicians.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And so astrologer I I she did my chart and
I was just blown away at you know, the actors.
And she goes, don't tell anything else about you. And
I gave herm my middle name. Okay, so she couldn't
look me up or anything of that.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Can I ask what it is?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Or is that Wemont? My mom got Titus from the Bible? Okay,
Titus is the shortest book.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
It is, yes, yes, okay, and uh.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Lamont from San Fernecean. So that tells you a lot about.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Okay, did she go with Titus because she liked the
name or because she liked that it was the shortest
book in the Bible.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
I think she liked the name. And then, you know,
do you believe people grow into a name?
Speaker 1 (27:30):
I do, because I grew into Ago.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (27:32):
What does mean Ago? Literally in Ebo, which is my name,
is Ebo means money. My family is part of a
tribe called the People. It's a small tribe, but my
name is.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Ebo and that's the currency in the tribe.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
It means well, no, Ebo means money. The word Ebo
means money. And then my full name is Ego Booma,
which means money is good. Okay, interesting, but yeah, I
actually was like, why is this why I don't I
don't want to have a name that's like celebrating money.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
But then my mom would.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Tell me my child is my Well, money is not
inherently bad. It's the love of money, and people forget that,
don't They forget that? The love of money? But I'm like,
I don't need to celebrate money anyway. Point is a
go of it all. I dealt with people calling me
Ego when I was younger, and be like freud like
or Lego my ago very much a big marketing campaign
(28:31):
happening during my childhoods. I dealt with a lot of
Lego my agos because I came home and I was like,
they're making fun of my name. And my aunt was like,
you go out there and you make fun of them
right back. And that's what I did. And so and
then there was a period in middle school where people
would be like, you know, I went to elementary school
with a lot of the same people went to middle school.
(28:52):
Then it became a hodgepodge of people from other elementary schools,
and people meet me and be like, Lego my ago.
I'd go, no, yeah, and it worked every time. I
was like, I'm like, I've heard that before, and I'll
say to people, go, oh my god, I never heard that.
(29:18):
You grew into your name.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
She chose it right. So Titus was an apprentice to
the apostle Paul. Paul loved Titus on the Island of
Crete to spread uh the good word, and Titus means
little warrior, and.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
It means the warrior warrior. I said little, but okay,
you said like a Baltimore person because they said little,
little that's little but okay, but okay, it was.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
It was warrior, and I have often felt like I
was leading the charge on the misunders Did I even
still feel that way. Nothing fills me with rage then,
and I means me today that means to walk around
full of rage all the time. But nothing fills me
(30:10):
with raged more than people being misunderstood and not seeing
da da da. And that's such that that also is
so heavily used that it might not carry the weight
that it should. But you know, we we walk in
a roll where now people are seeking out to be missed,
to misunderstand people, to prevent the the bridging of the gaps.
(30:33):
As I said when we first sat down, because my
desire is to be frank and honest, and so I
don't know that my mom did all of that research
to choose my name, but I feel like I once
I realized that that was because I had the same
thing that called me Titus, I mean Tyler. They would
call me Tito tiger tight ass, which you know I
(30:54):
grew into that.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Toots your workout, I have a trainer, so okay, okay,
of course, but okay.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Which is but as a kid, that wasn't fun, you know,
yeah and so, but I grew into it and I
know own it.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
That's how I feel about Ago. When I was eighteen,
I moved across the country from Baltimore to LA for college.
And then there's my mom at one point was like,
if you don't like your name so much, you can
start going by your middle name. And then I was like, no,
I have earned the badge and a I've lived with this,
like during the hardest time to have the name Ago,
I feel, but the lego my Ago marketing campaign as
a child, I'm like, I earned this. I'm a go now.
(31:36):
I will not go to LA and be like I'm
a different name. Which once I got to LA for college,
there were so many people in my freshman class that
I knew in the little group that I knew who's
were going by their middle names. They had like made
the switch. People who moved from New York or elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Was like, in my people do that, especially when you
go to a place where no one already knows you. Yeah,
just so you can walk walk in with a different identity.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
I think that's oh, I think it is to walk
in with a different identity. And but it's interesting because
by the time I was that age and had made
the choice to move across the country. I feel like
the person who made the move to move across the
country and made that bold move was ago. So to
go and show up and be like, and now my
name is my middle name would feel crazy to me
(32:19):
because I'm like, people are gonna ask and it's not.
I love my name. It's Kalechi. It's what my mom
wanted to name me. My dad picked my name, you know,
I interrogated her. Callechi. Thank God, thank god, God, thanks,
thank you. Thanks. Maybe the podcast should be Kella Dad.
Thanks Dad. Maybe maybe we'll think about it. Just let's
(32:42):
talk after I don't know, we have to do all
the branding over again, and somebody can we get somebody
on that the person we fired about the intro get
them back. I need him to redo the branding. Okay,
So astrology, I do want to know if you'm your
mom named you after a book of the Bible. You
go to a church on the Lower east Side, so
(33:04):
you do have your own faith. So how did astrology
get introduced?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
How did you meet this incomplete?
Speaker 1 (33:09):
No, not at all, but not in my mind, But
how did it get introduced to you, because I feel
like often people are like, I have this one thing,
and this one thing in terms of spirituality is enough
for me. I meditate, I do your.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
God made the stars, God made the moon. They did everything,
they them.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
They them, Okay, just fair enough, because.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
They're in you, there in me.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Sure, it's a short answer.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Sure, okay, I will fight you on it. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
I I think that they offer so many resources to
find them because they realize that we are such narrow
minded thinkers and often we'll cut our nose off spite
our face. Uh. And so they widespread themselves so that
(33:54):
there's a path to something that resonates with you, that
you might be illuminated and vibrate on a much higher plane,
and you can walk around with that as the singular
thing that is. But if you do that, you are bound.
You are destined to run into all the other ways
that they are here.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
There's a book I love, Barking to the Choir by
Father Gregory Boyle. Do you know who that is? He
is a priest who I'm not Catholic, but he is
a priest. I can read a book. I just think
that people go, oh, so you're Catholic when I say
I read this book, and no, I'm just curious. I've
read all kinds of books. But he is a Catholic
priest who runs the biggest gang rehabilitation program in the
(34:35):
world in la And in reading that book, I remember
some quote and I'm going to bastardize it slightly, but
essentially he's like, there's nothing beyond the sanctity of God,
which in his point in the little section I was
reading there was just like we put God in boxes.
We put God in boxes we can understand, and God
is so much bigger and that resonates with me also,
(34:57):
and I'm like, so, yeah, to your point, they're not
in conf like how did you find your astrologist? I
don't need to keep driving home. I'm just like, always
so curious.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I have.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I talked to a spiritual coach too, but I'm like,
how did I get here?
Speaker 2 (35:09):
A psychic and an astrologist? And I was like, let
me do this astrologist right, And so I gave her
my my middle name. I gave her the time that
I was born and the location. Okay, and that was it,
and she went on on a tear. I learned things
about She revealed things about myself that I had long suspected,
(35:34):
and she, you know, that, sort of confirmed it. And
now that I have put into practice some of the
things that I learned that were lying dormant, I'm eager
to do it again to to now that I'm coming
with a different energy, it's a different time. This is
also like maybe like the last one was a year
and a half.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Ago, so it's time.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
It's time just to see. And I'm in pursuit of
a different I'm in pursuit of integrating the titles. I
have to come back into the world. I sort of
retreat it for a bit, not not it has nothing
to do with work, just being a member of society,
and I'm anxious to see how the world responds to him.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I'm hopeful.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
I am too.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
I'm hopeful, I really really am. Now you've been in
this recluse mode sort of working on things. You broke
up with the problem four years ago.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Yes, I'm very single.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yes. Is that so when you were talking about not
wanting to sleep with someone like in the same baths
of the energy exchange, How are you in terms of
dating now? In this stage you're in are we single intentionally?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Do you?
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Are you curious about partnership.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I'm very cute about partnership. Okay, for let me start
with the big thing, and then I'll tell you about.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
A date that I had two nights ago.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
So I believe that I definitely, I desperately am desires
of being a wife.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
You want to be a wife? Have you always wanted
to be a wife?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
No?
Speaker 1 (37:05):
When did this happen? In the In the years you've
been working on the.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Years of working, I realized that my insatiable desire to
take care of someone, I have an insatiable desire to
take care of people. I can't help it. And even
when I walk down the street, I have to not
look people in the eye because I can see into
your soul. And you can too. Yeah, and and and
I and I and and and people. You you said
(37:30):
something way earlier about people take they miss they misconstrued
you're not even retreating, but holding your energy close to
your person as being egotistical or or or flippant or
stand office And it's anything but. And so I you know,
(37:53):
just in life, I'm like, oh no, because I will,
I will connect myself with you in a way that
I don't have time for or wish to. But once
I make the connection, the connection is made and fall
through with it anyway. So with partnership, I feel that
I'm being called to do something else by them in
(38:14):
the world, and that calling is going to force me
to not participate in such frivolity.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Okay, and my frivolity mean.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
I mean I'm I love men, okay. And the door
has revolved, yes, okay, you know in my past, and
I just want to slow the door.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Down like we're revisiting exis.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, I just kind of I And also it's exhausting,
you know. And I want the energy to be the
temperature that I set that we decide on together. And
I want, you know, more fur babies. And I want
my good to not be evil spoken of because you
(39:02):
have to explain what you're do in your private life
as a celebrity that no one's going to the they
remove that past, that you are a human, they immediately
I want to know what's going on, you know. And
and I while I can walk around be like, oh
that's not your amazingess, it'll it'll.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Get it'll get out there there. And so if you
don't want somebody to know something.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
You're going to make sure they figure it out, and
so I just want and let me. I don't want
that for that reason, but I do realize that in
my ask there are things that I have to leave
behind because you have to make room for new things, right,
And so that's part of it. And I'm in the
(39:43):
words of India Irea, I'm quiet, I'm ready for love.
I come on, there's something has risen up in me
that I walk around with and I'm not searching for
me as as much as I was in the past.
I feel found where where I am and I feel
founding out that I'm ready to share it with whoever
(40:03):
you are.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
And you don't worry that it will deplete you.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
No, okay no, because I now know, thanks to Pablo,
what is a what is properly being yoked? Equally yoked?
Speaker 1 (40:15):
I just asked a friend this on a voice note,
no joke a week ago. What do you go on
what I said? What is equally yoked.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Mean to you? When you were in the presence of
the other person and you are not thinking, you are
not searching for your peace, It is just there, the
same way God is just here. They don't need you
to prove or disprove it. That love is before you
and after you, and right now that is the same
(40:42):
energy I want in God, in the.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Flesh, peace, peace, I see Okay, I get it, I
get it. I hear you. I have to know about
the state.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Okay. Well this is harkening back to Pablo give me
that book and me going, oh, I got to sleep
my though.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
So we were in bed and you and the guy
on the data problem okay, okay, And it was great
and he's wonderful and you know, fine, I don't know
that he's my forever person, but do you want to?
Speaker 2 (41:13):
But if he sees this, I don't care. He he
is very mature. And before the date started and we
had food and we're watching the TV or whatever, and
I was answering emails and stuff and I kept apologizing
because I do your life like this is so embryonic,
(41:33):
like I don't, and I'm in your space and I
if we were together, you wouldn't. You wouldn't not be
doing what you need to do. So let me see it.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Wow, your piece, I know your piece.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
But I get hot in the bed, okay.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Temperature wise, so cuddling you hate it.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
I love cuddling.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
But but then in practically practice.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah yeah, So I got up halfway there and I
went slept it in the other.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Room, Titus, somebody's gonna want to cuddle with your hot.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Body, then the room is going to be ice cold.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
What temperature do you used to be?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Sixty one and in the winter I cracked the windows.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Oh yeah, okay, because I just graduated like three years
ago to sixty nine. That's too Oh my gosh, who's
gonna clip that.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
I'm just I.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Just realized, I know sixty nine degrees is oh lot,
oh lo.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
I can't go back now.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
They can't cut it because we fired the person. Oh no,
we hired them a get okay, so they're here. They
a sixty nine degrees is my preferred temperature? Actually, farenheitshaw.
I'm talking about temperature in the bedroom. And I just graduated,
and I have a hard time if it's if it's
hotter than that. But I used to be a person
who was like, I need the room to be warm.
Why would I ever have the air on in the winter?
(42:59):
That was me. Why would I have the air on
in the winter? Why would I have the air on
in the middle of the night blowing on me, Like, oh.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Really, way from me?
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Wow, So you like the winter. You excited for winter coming,
I'm excited. I get scared of winter.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Because I don't like how it gets dark.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
So that's the thing. And I'm a plant and I
genuinely need like light, and so even my apartment in
New York, Like, I think one of the two criteria
I had was I need natural light. Like it's there's
an abundance of natural light and it is not gonna
in any way be obstructed based on where my apartment faces,
and I just like I need I can't. I get
scared winter. I'm like, oh lord, my, I feel very
(43:38):
pist season winter though, where I'm like, I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be sad because it's dark earlier. And as
much as I am an introvert, I'm like, love to
be an introvert in the summertime. But I love watching
people bounce around, you get it. I'm like, but I'm
loving the energy. I'm loving watching out my window and like.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
A well, you love being alone with everybody?
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Yeah, Like the one of the most comfortable times I've
felt was being at a friend's apartment in La We
had like had a rehearsal for sketch and we went
to his apartment and we were just there was no agenda.
It wasn't like we're going to the apartment because we're
gonna gout, We're gonna wing too your apartment, we're planning
to order this. We just were in his apartment right
at this real moment of clarity for myself where I
(44:19):
was like, this is really nice. There's no agenda, and
I'm on my laptop because I have something to do,
much like you and your emails on the date, there's
something that was requiring my attention on my laptop. And
I was like, this feels like family. Like I'm over
here on my laptop. We don't have an agenda. There
was no music playing. We were really just like at
his apartment and I was like, I'm on my laptop.
We've spent the day together. I feel easy, breezy. Everyone's
(44:42):
doing their thing. And then my friend at one point
was like what are you doing on the computer, And
it snapped me out of it and I was like, oh,
it's not as comforty. It's not as comfy as I thought.
But not the friend who owned the apartment, but it
was different and another friend in the group and I
was like, oh see, and I had told him. I
was like, you kind of we talked about it the
next day. I was like you and the the apartment,
me and the guy who goes, what are you doing?
(45:02):
Why are you on the laptop? I was like, you
kind of snapped me out of this. This then space
where I was like, oh, this feels like family, Like
I don't have to be on and like, of course
I'm going to chime in the conversation here or there.
I'm gonna put the laptop away in a second, but
like I.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Were cognizant of what was happening around. Yeah, but you
also felt safe to be doing.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
I was like, yeah, I feel this is so nice.
There's no expectation of me, and for me, part of
like being at home and part of why I like
being on my own a lot of the times is
because I'm like, there's no expectation of me. Like when
I'm by myself, I'm like I can be whatever I
want to be and no one's now scrutinizing my every move.
(45:40):
I still hang out with those friends. I still love them.
There are people that it got very strange with and
I'm sure you experienced that right that it got strange with.
Did you have any friends that like you would be
like this person loves me, but they don't like me.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, my friend and I were talking about that.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, I've had a few of those people. And for why, well,
I had to keep them around because the social circle.
I was not going to not be in that circle
for a certain amount of time based on several different factors.
So to remove myself would only be able to be
to complicate mm hmm matters. And so sometimes I have
(46:19):
to be the the architect of peace, and to be
the architect of piece doesn't always mean that there is
the absence of war. And so I thought, well, let
me just I'll play along for now until I know
that I can permanently remove myself from this cycle.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
And you have removed yourself permanently from the cycle, you
seem to have no problem getting out removing yourself.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
No, no, anymore. I don't want to be anywhere more
than I don't want to be anywhere where I were.
Tightest can't be m hm. And if Titus can't be there,
I want to We can't do that I can't do
it anymore, even like yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Even like hey, TuS, I thought we were about to Okay,
fair enough, I understand, you know, everything doesn't have to
be said, and sometimes things can just are understood. I
don't know what that was, but I feel like it
(47:18):
was good. It was going to be good. Your dad,
you call him dad, biological father, sperm donor what? How
do you actually refer to him if you weren't here, Like,
how would you refer to him in life?
Speaker 2 (47:33):
I try not to. How do I refer to him
to his face?
Speaker 1 (47:38):
That? And then also I just remove.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
The pronoun or the noun whatever it's called, and I
just be like hey, and I get right to what
I want. Oh.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
So there's no no calling hi, vice first name. It's
not calling dad. It's just but so you do talk
to him.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
He will text me. I've asked him not, I've asked
him to leave me alone. Okay. About five years ago,
he I started having dreams about reconnecting and I had
not my current therapist, but my therapist before that said
to me, Titus. My mom had said to me, Titus,
(48:13):
maybe you should call him, talk to him, say what
you need to say and get it off your chest whatever.
I told my therapist what my mom had suggested, and
he said, Titus, you are not going to hear what
you want to hear. If you do it, just know
that it has to be for you, like it has
to be one side at me. I wanted to say this,
(48:35):
not because you are in pursuit of anything. And he
was absolutely right. And I was devastated. And it took
me a while to make peace with my therapists being
correct and my biological father having not having the capacity
(48:55):
to own his part of how my childhood was curated.
And so back in January I texted him after he,
you know, was like happy to hear and I was like,
I said, you're absolutely right, it's going to be And
I wut down the litany of things that I needed
(49:17):
to say to him, and I said, you got to
know this is not an indictment. I'm not mad anymore.
I'm not any of those things anymore. I said, but
I don't have the fervor that you have to ignite
(49:37):
a relationship with you. I can't do that with you.
And I said, you made your decision a long time ago.
I said, if you need anything, anything, I will be there. Like,
no problem. I had the resources, that's not a problem.
But I cannot have a relationship with you.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
And so what made the fervor that you might have
had dissipate because there sounds like there was a time
where you were maybe on the same page about trying.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Well, I it dissipated it once I realized that he
was always interested to atone for he was aware his
guilt was the impetus, not his genuine love for me.
And I'm not going to unlocked that prison for you.
That's not mine, that's yours and me especially once I
(50:30):
understood what was underscoring this new move me entering into
a covenant whereby I would agree to participate in this
non relationship relationship put me in prison, and I spent
forty plus years trying to get out of it, so
I not can go back and see it. Yeah, get
out of here?
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah yeah? How did he respond? I don't care, you
don't care, Okay.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
I blocked it. I understand, and then I later I
unblocked him.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Why do I block?
Speaker 2 (50:59):
I do that sometimes because I said to him, if
you need something, how would you get in touch with me?
Speaker 1 (51:04):
That's true? You did say, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Fair, fair, But I deleted the conversation and then I
deleted it from doing twice ye And so it makes
me sad for him that he can't do it for himself,
that he can't walk himself through his choices. I'm okay
because I raised myself the part of me that needed
(51:29):
my dad. I did that. I got me here. My
mom was great, she did what she could. She's not
without her shit. But you know I I I've done
things where I've had to go back through some extreme
discomfort where I could have at the time responded differently
(51:52):
to a covenant that I had agreed to, and I
didn't hold up to my end of the bargain. I
will never do that to anyone. It's awful. It is awful.
And so if he wants to be free, he has
to free himself. I had to free myself.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
That's fair. Do you want kids?
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Fuck? No, no, no, no, no no. There are too
many parameters. There are two, there's the absence. There's too
many parameters that are absent in the day to day
and globally and on the federal level, that are in
(52:34):
place where if my kid walks out of the door,
I'm not my assholes. Not mean fin to be tight
when I don't know where you are. That's too much.
And I see how he handled himself. Not granted, I
would like to think that I won't do that, but
I can only think as far as wanting to be
in a relationship and having to get up out of bed.
(52:55):
This thing. Then they say when a child is born,
there's a natural you fall in love and information is
downloaded that perhaps you've never knew was there. A new
portal is opened up in your body. And I've experienced
that we're dogs. But I think my children is art.
(53:20):
And I think what I can leave behind that will
go on after I leave here is what part of
my mind I've let be recorded whereby people can listen
and revisit it should they want to. I don't deem
myself some extraordinary thinker that or an extremely artists in
(53:44):
relation to but this is what I have, and this
was the truth in my highverd many years. I will
have been here when it's time to leave, and that's
the that is I can get on board with that.
I can be confident in that that I feel a
paternal instinct about. And that is what rises up at
me when I hear about legacy. I can't do that.
(54:06):
I don't think it's safe for me to do that
in the human form.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
That's fair. Yeah, I understand, and I appreciate that. And
now it's time for a segment called that's nice, But
what about me? It is stupid, fucking dumb. Okay, Titus,
you get it. You're busy with acting, entertainment, projects on projects.
How do I carve out time for myself? What is
(54:36):
your methodology? Do you have two phones? Do you schedule
a vacation every year? Well in advance? Like, what do
you do so that you don't experience burnout? What should
I do and experience burnout? What are your February or
March pisces? Are you February? Okay? This is that's where
(54:57):
the split begins.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
You You're just gonna have to okay, the same way
you are the face of your art, the same way
that you are the face of your yeah, chosen family,
Like you have to act on behalf of of that.
You also have to act on behalf of your piece.
(55:22):
And these three things, while the currency is different in
these planes, one is money, one is a type of love,
and then one is uh self care. They are all
the pendulum swings in terms of how much weight they carry.
(55:44):
And you you have to even if it's a big
money grab or the family really needs you, if you
ain't got anything, or if you're not taking care of
this this one thing you have offered energy and these
other two things. That is murky and muddy and not
as transparent as as it would be were you to
(56:10):
take care of your your health. So you just have
to put out some hard nose and and know that
once I take care of this and I'm in the
right space, I will regenerate these other two things. It's
just as how it is.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
Yeah, So just fucking say no, Okay, say no no, yeah,
And that's a complete That is a complete. Yeah, Okay,
I really appreciate it. This podcast isn't just about you,
and it's not just about me. We also help a listener.
So we have a listener who needs advice. Kevin, you
can play that. It's real life. This is a real listener.
Speaker 4 (56:47):
Hey, I don't know if you're going to listen to this,
but I was wondering if you had advice for making
friends in the city during college. Also, I love you
guys so much. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:59):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
Making friends.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
Since she goes to college in New York, it sounds
like it, Yes, what would you tell her?
Speaker 2 (57:08):
You got time to go out out of your classes
and have a social circle. That are people who don't
who are not in your what you're trying to do,
she's not on the line. I'm trying to don't. I
don't know. Okay, what do you think she's trying to do?
Speaker 1 (57:24):
She's trying to make friends, she said, do you know
the answer was in the prompt? Yeah, trying to make friends.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
I mean, I guess, well, you can't. How old are
you would college?
Speaker 1 (57:35):
Eighteen to twenty two? Eighteen to twenty presumably not twenty two,
given it's sounding like college is relatively new to this listener.
Speaker 2 (57:43):
I think I think social. I think you're you're going
to do it anyways. You're going to be social. That's
that's the thing. Like, you know, when we're in college,
you want so desperately to not be in school. You know,
you want to go out and party and and play
and do all the things. So I mean, wear tight
(58:03):
clothes and like show your boobies and like.
Speaker 1 (58:09):
This is why Titus can't be a dad. You know
what we've decided today.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
I don't know. What do you think?
Speaker 1 (58:16):
You said, I'm a love it to you because I
lead this young soul of stress.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (58:22):
I mean, make friends. What are your interests, Lean into
those interests, meet like minded people that way, and that's
a good barometer for whether you would be friends. Naturally.
You like that, You're like, yeah, you take it between
the two of us. Child, Okay, Titus, I really appreciate
you sharing yourself with me today. I really really really
(58:46):
appreciate it. I know you would not be here if
you didn't want to, So I'm honored you're here, and
I appreciate your vulnerability, and I hope you felt me
hold that. I adore you. Thank you, thank you. And
that was my episode with Titus Burgess. I think we delivered.
(59:08):
We delivered a product, and you might have opinions about
that product, but keep them to yourself, No, don't. Actually,
if you liked the podcast, I hope you subscribed, and
I hope you've left a nice review. That would be nice.
Why not? No one told me to ask you that,
but I just thought that would be really nice. That'd
be very sweet, and I would appreciate it anyway, Titus,
how fun is he. We got a lot of tea,
(59:30):
a lot of juice, and honestly wors chalk full of beverages.
And I have to be that was like a dad joke.
That was a dad joke. Oh boy, I have to
go back to comedy school. If you want advice from
me and Titus in the future, not me and Titus,
me and my guest Titus. Titus may be back. I
(59:52):
don't know if he'll be back. I don't know if
he'll want to come back. I don't I haven't repeated
any guests yet. I'm everyone's again, just like Dad of
the day for But if you want advice from me
and my next guest or another guest, call me. Leave
a voice message. The numbers five oh two eight four
nine three two three seven five oh two eight four
nine three two three seven five o two eight four
(01:00:16):
nine no five oh two. Thanks Dad's anyway, I just
wanted to see if you were paying attention. Call leave
a voice message. I love you so much. I don't
think you get how much I love you, and it's
really fucking me up right now. I'll see you guys
next time. Please come back. I love you, no, I
seriously love you, and you don't have to love me too.
(01:00:38):
You don't have to say it back. There's no pressure
to say it back, But I love you.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Thanks Dad. Is a production of Will Ferrell's Big Money
Players and iHeart podcasts. I'm your host Ago wodem Our
producer is Kevin Bartelt, and our executive producer is Matt
Appadaka
I'm trying to figure out Hi. First of all, Hi,
I'm trying to figure out what is going on for
a person when you say, hey, where are you from?
And they go all over? And I understand some people
do move a lot as kids and as young people.
I totally get that. That makes perfect sense to me.
But I'm sort of like shorthand think fast, where are
(00:32):
you from?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Like?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Where are you from? It could be you lived in
North Carolina and then you moved to Massachusetts when you
were older. I don't know, but you know, where are
you from? But people seem to dodge that question. Not always,
but every once in a while, people dodge that question.
And this isn't about like xenophobia. We might cut that out.
(00:53):
I don't know. I'm just in case you're thinking that.
I just mean it's just interesting. You guys know those
people where you go where are you from? And they
go all over? And I'm like, yeah, but like, just
say a place, where'd you go to high school? And
maybe I should change the question. Maybe I'm the problem.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
It's me.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I should say where did you go to high school?
But don't tell me the school because I don't know
ice high school's off hand but like, what city was
your high school in? That's what I'll do. But I
am really curious about the people and their whole I'm
from all over, and I'm like, why are you making
me probe you like this? Maybe you're like, bitch, stop
asking questions, say that to me instead, But I'm from
(01:29):
all over. I'm like, I guess I'll ask a follow up,
where'd you go to high school? What city? I'll start
with that next time. Anyway, just thinking about these interactions
I have with people, and I'm like, what, hey, just
say a place, but also do what you want and
I'll change my question and I'll see how it works
and i'll report back. People. So happy you're listening to
(01:50):
this episode, So happy you're here. I cannot wait to
be speaking with Titus Burgess in just a little bit.
It's I bet it's gonna be good. I'm excited. So
watch this as I do that, we need to do
an introduction. I want to address something first that she
(02:11):
might be wondering. You even acknowledge it initially about my beat.
You look great, Thank you so much. It's a beat.
It's a beat today.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Are you not normally assaulted?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
No? No, no, I'm going to an event later tonight,
and I didn't want to have to sit and glab.
I go exactly, and so I'm I'm actually made up
for event, but also for you. Oh come on, I
want to I wasn't come out here no makeup.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
On listen, you look beautiful either way.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Agrees A beat don't matter.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Sometimes sometimes you could get from my face and get
beat in such a fashion that it becomes a problem.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Like and not in a like coat.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, like put her in a yeah, put her under
because it's doing too much. Thank you. I just wanted
to acknowledge because it's giving contours, giving smoke, it's.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Giving everything great. And also I'm not crying. I'm just
my alergies are like really doing. I was gonna act
for the past week, Like I walk outside and just
like I can't stop the tears. So Cleriton and those
are laughing at me, like and and.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Now I can't. You know, Zertich is one of our sponsors,
and so now we can't. I'm kidding, kidding. I take
a zerotic every day.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Does that work?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
It's hard to say. I even got allergy shots at
one point. So this this little segment is for the
allergy community.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Perfect.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I took, I took. I take their take every day.
I do flow naise every day. And I got allergy shots,
but they were kind of I thought they worked.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And then because we live in such an unsanitary environment.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Potentially yes, and there's a lot of debris to irritate
our interiors. And that's that sounds like an official doctor
every to irritate.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
All Right, you'll go to talk to the nurse and
then come back. I need to do an intro for you,
all right. My next guest is a six time Emmy
nominated actor and singer. You've seen him recently as Mary
Todd Lincoln and the Tony Award winning play Oh Mary,
Songs for a New World and The Cat in the
Hat out in November twenty. That's coming out soon.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Titus Burgess should have correct you know, it didn't win
the Tony. Okay, so it was felt surprise nominated.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It was nominated, though, Okay, whoever wrote this, I'm getting
up there going okay to share that gotta be fired
someone it job.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Okay. No, we're not rejoicing people saying somebody wrote this though.
This is the setup and this is another it's a
hit job. All right, I'm going to do it again,
and they should keep that in because I want people
to know this shit is not perfect. Right. That's the
problem with entertainment is we try to make everything look perfect,
in my opinion, and.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
It trickles down into real life.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yes, and you're like, everything's got to look and feel perfect.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
But you don't even realiz that you're operating until that
governance on autopilot. But that is our day to day
and it's unrealistic.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I when did you realize you were operating in that way?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Oh? I see, perhaps around forty my body started responding
to stimuli differently and to people's influence differently, and I
began to have this knee jerk reaction to being well,
I call it brutally honest. But I'll just say honest
because people take it as brutality because most of the
(05:28):
world operates in these strange niceties.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Oh, talk to me about it, and let's talk about
the difference between nice and kind.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And I don't know what to do with that.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I know I don't either, So we're family, frank.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yes, by all means, yes, you know I know what
to do. I grew up in a family that they
were blunt, and we just said what you meant, that's
what we meant. And there was no filter and there
was no buffer, no cushion, you know, no softening the blow.
And eventually that became comforting.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
M that's what It's familiarity. It's yeah, it's what It's
how you were raised. And it's like, this is what
I know, and so this is now how I operate.
And now that I'm in a world outside of this community,
it's being received a differently.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
And even when I got to New York, I thought
it was going to be pardon me. I thought it
would resemble the way I grew up. But I realized
the articulated the influence of PC culture had done a
number on New York City culture.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
It made its way here, it made.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Its way here, and you know, I was searching for,
you know, the funk off, you know. Yeah. But and
now what I feel has happened is that PC culture
is gone, and political culture has influenced our day to
(06:56):
day culture. And now we have returned to a more
frank and Byron. But it's frank in the name of
cruelty and not frank in the name of me being
clear about what my intentions are with you, and that
is disappointing.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
It's that's tough to navigate, I feel like, and I
it's interesting that some people conflate that frankness and directness
with cruelty just inherently, but it's like, oh no, my
intent is to be direct with you and to be
efficient and make sure you're understanding what I'm communicating and
so that you're not like waffling and unclear about what
(07:29):
it is I'm trying to say to you. I'm not
here to hurt you. I'm just here to communicate because TikTok.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, my I think the thing that I want most
out of life is not to waste time, because there's
still little of it. And if the closest route is
or the way to bridge the gap is to be frank,
then that's what I'm gonna do. And I want you
to do with me, because I don't want you to
waste time.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, you want it to do and I do have
shit to do and it's doing. No go to a
gall to night, but first I need to intro you again.
And we have to also see to it that whoever
wrote this initially has to be fired tonight. You who
I'm kidding?
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
My next guest is an Emmy nominated actor and singer.
You've seen him recently as Mary Todd Lincoln in the
Tony nominated play Oh Mary. Songs for a New World,
The Cat and the Hat out November twenty twenty six.
Titus Burgess, how did we do? Baby?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
You're doing so fact checked good.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And we're good. Okay, Okay, So now you grew up
in Georgia. That's great, right, So you were people were
being frank in Georgia. That is interesting to me because
I equate like the southern hospitality with a little bit
of the nice cities that is more of.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
A white people thing. Okay, Black people didn't have time
for that. And I'm not talking like I grew up
in the civil rights air because I didn't. But you know,
my I grew up in the sticks in a town
called Lexton, Georgia, and all of the diggings people will
(09:00):
see at Ins, Georgia, and that's where I went to school,
and my parents are still there and all that stuff.
But I grew up on a farm. We raised chickens, hogs,
chickens hogs, and I love farm life. My mom and
(09:21):
I lived with my grandparents, her mom and dad and
funny stories. My mother I thought she was my sister
because from birth to about seven years old, I heard
her call my grandmother mom. Okay, yeah, so I called
(09:42):
grandma mom. Oh so when my mom. I'll never forget
this about Oh I was six years old. I forget
what I had done. I'm an only child. And and
also pisces. We can get.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Pisces is everywhere. You're tending not to cry and it's allergies,
but it's actually tears. He's emotional today. That's right there.
It's my allergy.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
But we can'tnot be.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I feel everything deeply.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, you have to report on it, yes, yes, like
I might if I don't get this out of the way.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Oh yeah. My sister's like, you're sober both you need
to talk things out and talk it through and don't
you And she's like, no, I process internally. She goes,
you're an external processor. I'm an internal processor, and I'm
like you should be an external processor like me.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
It sings out like I don't know. I don't know
how it's to be even tell people that I date,
which okay, I also talk.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Well, I know because we talked the same way. This
is going to be a chaotic episode. We did the
intro five minutes into the conversation, so blame it on
astrology today. So wait, this thing happened. I'm going to
I'll remember the dating, but six years old. A thing
happened when you were six pisces, my mom child.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Ye, my mom tried to reprimmand me and she was
giving me a little spanking. And I said, I'm gonna
tell my mama, and she why did I do that?
She looked at me and she said what And I said,
I'm gonna tell my MoMA, and she goes, I am
your mama, and then she just took a beat and
I could see the whole scene. I could see her
(11:19):
recalibrate in real time. And I swear to God, I
go the The next week, my mom had an apartment
in Athens, Georgia, and we had moved out.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Oh my goodness, because she knew she oh, he doesn't understand.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
He doesn't understand.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
It's it's like being like, can I speak to the manager?
And the person's like, I am exactly, that's exactly right. Wow,
and so ready to.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Because I thought I had been ripped away from my parents,
and it took about a year and a half or so. Well,
you should also know that every summer, okay, since I
was an only child, every summer up until I was
in high school old enough to say on my own,
I would go and live with my grandparents because my
(12:03):
mom worked a nine to five and she wasn't I couldn't,
you know, take care of myself. She didn't want to
pawn me off on her sisters or brother. She rarely
let me spend the night with anyone else. And so
I went to spend the night with my grandparents, and
so I had this relationship with them that is deeper
than the the other. You know, forty of my first
(12:25):
cousins had and I'm not joking, I have like forty first, guy.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Forty first, how many siblings did your mom have?
Speaker 2 (12:31):
She had three sisters and four brothers.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Okay, And then are you including four cousins on your
dad's side. Also, when you say, oh.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
No, dad's dead, no, he's very much alive.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
He's alive but dead to you, Okay, it's thanks dad.
I also want to interrupt this. This is regularly scheduled
programming to say, not only are Titus and I both prices,
we're both wearing white shirts. What does it mean?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
What it mean? Transparency?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
It means, oh yeah, we're going to be transparent here,
We're going to be friend on this one.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Okay, tell me what's my biological father. My sperm donor
lived about twelve minutes away from my mom and I
my entire life. And he has a son, another son
who's older than I am, who was in and out
of jail. My dad was not great with money, didn't
(13:25):
like to pay child support. I remember this one event
where he knocked down This was in our my mom's
and i's first apartment, knocked down the door and storry
to choke her because she had called him asking about
(13:49):
child support. We had just moved. She did to the
additional support, and the phone conversation escalated, escalated, escalated, and
then about ten minutes later and I I just had
they're frozen because I didn't quite know what to do
and what was I gonna do?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, you were sevenish, right.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
My mom and I've never talked about this. Is my
dad and I have never just spoken about this, but
I remember.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
You remember, and so how did that de escalate. How
did that situation end?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
My mom ga asking for hair, and my dad sort
of he's not my father, my stepdad is my dad,
my biological father, sort of realizing coming to his senses this, this,
this is enough. And I was screaming, and I think
the terror, you know, Emmy must have you know, gotten
(14:43):
somewhere inside whatever's left of his paternal instinct to say,
oh this is scary. You know, I should stop. Anyways,
I this is you know, this type of frankness has
only happened with I'm gonna forget his.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Name, Mark Marrin. Yes, what the f And now his
podcast is so maybe this can be Yes fill the void.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It started before we were starting, were talking about I
do that.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Do you think my eye contact is intense?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
No, I don't care. It's it is intense, but it
feels familiar to me, so it doesn't scare me.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Okay, I only know.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I don't know how to talk about the weather me.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Either, though. That's why I have a podcast like this,
Like I do comedy, but I'm like, let's be for real.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I think what do you make of it? Okay? So
your your comedy has such an interesting subtectual energy okay,
and I love it, and I think it is fueled
with honesty and just a shred of the truth enough
that it's funny because it's true, right, And and the
(15:43):
way you represent the different sects of African American culture,
which you are not African American, correct, I.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Am African American American. I am African American. I'm for
Generation Nigerian, but I grew up born and raised in Baltimore,
so like that, but I am African American.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
True Africans.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Get some of them, do you know? I can't speak
to their experience, but I'm I'm not I genuinely I'm
not them. I'm a black woman.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Check.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Proud of that. African American woman, check, proud of that.
Her generation Nigerian woman, check, proud of that. Like, so,
I don't relate to the part that no part of
me wants to deny any part of my identity. I'm
like very proud to be So perhaps maybe that is.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
What they are experiencing when they have such a strong
response to being lumped in with.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah people, yeah, I don't. I mean, I'm like, there's
no lumping I'm like, I'm all of these things. I'm
all of these things at once, and I don't. They
just don't resonate with much of the distinction. For myself,
I'm just sort of like, I'm all of the things.
Right When you're like, you're African American, I'm like, literally, yeah,
African American, Nigerian American. But I don't feel the need
to be like, but I'm I'm this, I'm only this,
(16:57):
and I only want to be seen as this. I'm
all these things. Nigerian parents born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Like.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
How can do you go back to Nigeria.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I haven't been back to Nigeria since I was nineteen.
It's been a long time, and I'm what twenty three,
I'm twenty Yeah, I'm not twenty three. But I do
have a lot of family there. Thank you. I was
hoping you would say I do have. Some of my
mom's siblings are there.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Do you talk to them?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Do you I talked to my aunts and uncles. Yeah,
some of them are in Jersey, some are in England.
My cousin is a famous soccer player for Arsenal Moms.
My mom's sisters is he Hotah?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Is the wad to say?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
I can't say that about my cousin. He's a handsome
young man, but they're like he and his brothers are
just like upstanding young men that make me really truly
excited and hopeful if you will, for the future future
young men, and like they're just such lovely and wise
individuals and they're younger than I am, and I'm like,
I love talking to them.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
And do you think that's a familial influence that are
all y'all are just just natural born intuitive thinkers and
do gooders in the world.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I don't know if everyone is, but I think a
lot of my my, my siblings, my cousins, I think are.
But I'm deeply impressed with these British boys. I genuinely am,
Like they just are deeply, deeply impressive to me. But
I feel like people quite literally don't give a shit
what's going on with me. No, I don't understand. No,
because it's the tightest Burgess episode. So I'm like, I'm
(18:21):
you know what I mean, But you're doing what I
do because I'm like, well, I'll help you because I
have a couple more questions. No, no, no, no, no, I'm
not We're dancing. We're dancing, and it's not so there's
no leader. It's something else.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So I'll tell you something else. I don't know if
you have this. I have great difficulty being the center
of attention.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I do have it. I know that's strange to be like,
oh and I have a podcast and I'm a performer,
but you relate and they're like no, I get very
like don't look at me. And then also people perceive
it as like a different thing, like attitude, and I'm like,
it's actually the little.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
People. People misconstrue a natural in all right. So while
we are external processors, we are natural introverts and I
am a natural born recluse. I don't need a lot
of outside simulation, nor do I want it, nor do
(19:13):
I want a lot of attention. Now, the difference is
we know how to handle the attention when it.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And I only do sometimes.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
But yes, well yes, but what I mean is when
don't confuse me being the lead of a show or
or the having me my own podcast or anything with
my name on. I'm number one of the call sheet
with me wanting to form a walk in life to
look like that.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
And that is that's actually a word and a sermon
right now that you are that's true. I do resonate
with that. That is completely. That feels very accurate to me.
So you are not necessarily interested in being center of
attention when people give you compliments like it, because that.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Means they love me. If they didn't pay attention, I'd
be fucked. Okay, But but I don't seek it out
and I just don't need. That is not what fuels me.
That's not what I don't like to go to two parties.
I don't enjoy the red carpet. I don't care to
give quick sound, and I hate going on TV shows
because I'm not funny.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Are you mad to be here right now? Said? You
heard it?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
By the way, because I because long form, I know
what to do with it right right.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Also, I didn't actually think you hated it. I just
was like it would be maybe funny if you did
say I'm not happy to be here with you.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It's different, Yeah, this is different. I don't feel the
the the pressure to beyond.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yes, I'm so glad, and I don't want I want
the I want the real Titus. I relate to so
much of what you're saying. I really I feel it.
I'm feeling it so much. Now you said you don't
want to go to parties. You don't like doing the
red carpet. Red carpet is really intense and people don't
talk about it's not so.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
You get to dress up and I'm like, look at me,
you think I want to put on Well.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Also, the reason I have a full beat on, like
to the gods right now, is because I'm like, I
don't want to sit for this again. Later. I'm like,
one done, let it be done. And so I have
a thing to go to five hours from now, and
I'm like, do it in a way where I can
have it five hours from now and not have to
sit again, because I also I don't I don't say
I hate sitting for glam, but it's like it starts.
(21:14):
It becomes a whole production to show up to one
red carpet for one second, and it's and it's like
you better nail it, and you better nail that pose,
and you better get the is.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
The output of energy, or rather the conservation and desire
for preservation of energy that is so intrinsically a part
of who we are that participating in something, even just
sitting there is give you energy, you know what I mean?
And if I got to go do this thing. Then
I need you to make this as fast as possible.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Because I'm like, I'm using so much energy here, the
energy budget, there's never there's never enough hours in the day. Yeah,
it's a song. Someone sent me a song called energy budget,
and one day it's this woman is declaring various various
uh things about her energy budget and what she doesn't
have time for. It's more it's a song. She's actually
(22:05):
just talking and it's mantras.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
It feels like I love it.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
I'll send it to you. But you don't like going out,
you don't like doing that whole thing dating. You were
going to say something about you being an external processor,
how you're dating, right, So.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I think I need to get like, I think they
need to ask my astrologist to do my chart again,
to tell me what I'm most compatible with, because you know,
my so, I was just I was in a ten
ten year relationship that ended four years ago. He and
I are best friend, he's family, and Pablo taught me
so much about myself. Okay, and so I helped Pablo
(22:42):
go to school, to school for psychology. Papa brought me
this book called HSP Highly Sensitive People m and and
that acronym is a bit of an over simplification of
what the actual condition is. And it basically there's a
percentage of the twenty percent of the population, and medical
(23:04):
experts are divided on whether or not this is a
real thing or not. But there's a precentage of the
population that is overstimulated, that processes a lot of information
at once, and our natural impaths and to a fault
where you can't determine decipher what energy is yours and
(23:26):
what has been deposited or inherited without your conscious I
accept this as my own or not my own. And
one of the things that occurred while we were together
was the more I realized what was happening, and when
I realized that he and I were not compatible. Oh,
it was almost like he gave you the book to
(23:47):
leave him.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Oh wow, he had no idea. Okay, what did you
read in the book that made you be that I
can't be with Pablo An.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I read the whole book and it was a slow
gestation of this is who I am, has nothing, has
less to do with Pava and who who I, thanks
to him, had realized I always was and I am
now becoming more of and that is the ability to
fight for myself, speak up for myself, say out loud,
(24:16):
I don't, I can't be here, and not just roll
over and take it. Because we are we put other
people's feelings and needs before our own. Even to say, Pablo,
I can't sleep with you and not I me like
have sex, I mean like I have to I have
to go be in a bed by myself, because even
at rest, that is an exchange of energy when you
are in the same space with someone, and it is
so important, which is why you want your beat five
(24:40):
hours before in a way, because sitting in that chair
is absorbing the energy of the person who is doing it.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Wait, Titus, am I an HSP? Do you think I think?
Not me discovering I'm an HSP? Because well, also, I
don't like sleepovers. I don't like sleepovers at all. I like,
I need to wake up in my I need to wait.
I don't care if I'm getting home at seven am.
Someone be like just stay here. I'm like, I have
to wake up in my.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
It's not about sanitation sanitizing. It is wanting not to
have to sanitize the energy. Oh oh, a space that
you are not.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Wait, why do legitimately I need the book. I need
the book. And mind you, when you said you have
an astrologer, I have been known to say that I
don't like I'll shout out that I'm a Pisces all
the time, and then I'll be like, I don't really
believe in astrology. Fun, heyha, I like to read the horoscopes.
If I see a moon omens on Instagram or something,
or astrology or or co star, I'm like, I want
(25:38):
to read it. I want to see if this applies.
So I'm not like a hard no, but it's like
a thing that's like playful for me. But for you,
you have an astrologer. When did you start to get
into astrology and what was that journey for you?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Well, I've always like read people's horoscopes and such whatever,
and I always seemed rather accurate, and I would read
more than one person's recanting of a particular sign on
a particular day, okay, to cross reference and figure out
if any of this has any merit to it. I
don't do this often. I do like once a year
where I get to read my chart or whatever, but
(26:10):
I'm always and I also have a a spiritual guide.
Her name is Joya Okay, and she people what is
going on?
Speaker 1 (26:18):
She says, he's a piss he's crying. He's got a
spiritual guid in astrologer, I need it. Okay, past and
you have a pastor.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Her name is doctor Jackie Lewis.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Doctor Jackie Lewis, Middle.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Collegiate church down in the Lower East Side. Okay, with
all these people because they all offer different things. You know,
you have your pediatrician, you have your gonecologists, you have
your they're all doctors, but they're all different and so
but if you have.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
A pediatrician, you don't have a guy because I'll just say,
but you might have your internal medicine physicians.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And so astrologer I I she did my chart and
I was just blown away at you know, the actors.
And she goes, don't tell anything else about you. And
I gave herm my middle name. Okay, so she couldn't
look me up or anything of that.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Can I ask what it is?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Or is that Wemont? My mom got Titus from the Bible? Okay,
Titus is the shortest book.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
It is, yes, yes, okay, and uh.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Lamont from San Fernecean. So that tells you a lot about.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Okay, did she go with Titus because she liked the
name or because she liked that it was the shortest
book in the Bible.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
I think she liked the name. And then, you know,
do you believe people grow into a name?
Speaker 1 (27:30):
I do, because I grew into Ago.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (27:32):
What does mean Ago? Literally in Ebo, which is my name,
is Ebo means money. My family is part of a
tribe called the People. It's a small tribe, but my
name is.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Ebo and that's the currency in the tribe.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
It means well, no, Ebo means money. The word Ebo
means money. And then my full name is Ego Booma,
which means money is good. Okay, interesting, but yeah, I
actually was like, why is this why I don't I
don't want to have a name that's like celebrating money.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
But then my mom would.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Tell me my child is my Well, money is not
inherently bad. It's the love of money, and people forget that,
don't They forget that? The love of money? But I'm like,
I don't need to celebrate money anyway. Point is a
go of it all. I dealt with people calling me
Ego when I was younger, and be like freud like
or Lego my ago very much a big marketing campaign
(28:31):
happening during my childhoods. I dealt with a lot of
Lego my agos because I came home and I was like,
they're making fun of my name. And my aunt was like,
you go out there and you make fun of them
right back. And that's what I did. And so and
then there was a period in middle school where people
would be like, you know, I went to elementary school
with a lot of the same people went to middle school.
(28:52):
Then it became a hodgepodge of people from other elementary schools,
and people meet me and be like, Lego my ago.
I'd go, no, yeah, and it worked every time. I
was like, I'm like, I've heard that before, and I'll
say to people, go, oh my god, I never heard that.
(29:18):
You grew into your name.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
She chose it right. So Titus was an apprentice to
the apostle Paul. Paul loved Titus on the Island of
Crete to spread uh the good word, and Titus means
little warrior, and.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
It means the warrior warrior. I said little, but okay,
you said like a Baltimore person because they said little,
little that's little but okay, but okay, it was.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
It was warrior, and I have often felt like I
was leading the charge on the misunders Did I even
still feel that way. Nothing fills me with rage then,
and I means me today that means to walk around
full of rage all the time. But nothing fills me
(30:10):
with raged more than people being misunderstood and not seeing
da da da. And that's such that that also is
so heavily used that it might not carry the weight
that it should. But you know, we we walk in
a roll where now people are seeking out to be missed,
to misunderstand people, to prevent the the bridging of the gaps.
(30:33):
As I said when we first sat down, because my
desire is to be frank and honest, and so I
don't know that my mom did all of that research
to choose my name, but I feel like I once
I realized that that was because I had the same
thing that called me Titus, I mean Tyler. They would
call me Tito tiger tight ass, which you know I
(30:54):
grew into that.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Toots your workout, I have a trainer, so okay, okay,
of course, but okay.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Which is but as a kid, that wasn't fun, you know,
yeah and so, but I grew into it and I
know own it.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
That's how I feel about Ago. When I was eighteen,
I moved across the country from Baltimore to LA for college.
And then there's my mom at one point was like,
if you don't like your name so much, you can
start going by your middle name. And then I was like, no,
I have earned the badge and a I've lived with this,
like during the hardest time to have the name Ago,
I feel, but the lego my Ago marketing campaign as
a child, I'm like, I earned this. I'm a go now.
(31:36):
I will not go to LA and be like I'm
a different name. Which once I got to LA for college,
there were so many people in my freshman class that
I knew in the little group that I knew who's
were going by their middle names. They had like made
the switch. People who moved from New York or elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Was like, in my people do that, especially when you
go to a place where no one already knows you. Yeah,
just so you can walk walk in with a different identity.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
I think that's oh, I think it is to walk
in with a different identity. And but it's interesting because
by the time I was that age and had made
the choice to move across the country. I feel like
the person who made the move to move across the
country and made that bold move was ago. So to
go and show up and be like, and now my
name is my middle name would feel crazy to me
(32:19):
because I'm like, people are gonna ask and it's not.
I love my name. It's Kalechi. It's what my mom
wanted to name me. My dad picked my name, you know,
I interrogated her. Callechi. Thank God, thank god, God, thanks,
thank you. Thanks. Maybe the podcast should be Kella Dad.
Thanks Dad. Maybe maybe we'll think about it. Just let's
(32:42):
talk after I don't know, we have to do all
the branding over again, and somebody can we get somebody
on that the person we fired about the intro get
them back. I need him to redo the branding. Okay,
So astrology, I do want to know if you'm your
mom named you after a book of the Bible. You
go to a church on the Lower east Side, so
(33:04):
you do have your own faith. So how did astrology
get introduced?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
How did you meet this incomplete?
Speaker 1 (33:09):
No, not at all, but not in my mind, But
how did it get introduced to you, because I feel
like often people are like, I have this one thing,
and this one thing in terms of spirituality is enough
for me. I meditate, I do your.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
God made the stars, God made the moon. They did everything,
they them.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
They them, Okay, just fair enough, because.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
They're in you, there in me.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Sure, it's a short answer.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Sure, okay, I will fight you on it. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
I I think that they offer so many resources to
find them because they realize that we are such narrow
minded thinkers and often we'll cut our nose off spite
our face. Uh. And so they widespread themselves so that
(33:54):
there's a path to something that resonates with you, that
you might be illuminated and vibrate on a much higher plane,
and you can walk around with that as the singular
thing that is. But if you do that, you are bound.
You are destined to run into all the other ways
that they are here.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
There's a book I love, Barking to the Choir by
Father Gregory Boyle. Do you know who that is? He
is a priest who I'm not Catholic, but he is
a priest. I can read a book. I just think
that people go, oh, so you're Catholic when I say
I read this book, and no, I'm just curious. I've
read all kinds of books. But he is a Catholic
priest who runs the biggest gang rehabilitation program in the
(34:35):
world in la And in reading that book, I remember
some quote and I'm going to bastardize it slightly, but
essentially he's like, there's nothing beyond the sanctity of God,
which in his point in the little section I was
reading there was just like we put God in boxes.
We put God in boxes we can understand, and God
is so much bigger and that resonates with me also,
(34:57):
and I'm like, so, yeah, to your point, they're not
in conf like how did you find your astrologist? I
don't need to keep driving home. I'm just like, always
so curious.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I have.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I talked to a spiritual coach too, but I'm like,
how did I get here?
Speaker 2 (35:09):
A psychic and an astrologist? And I was like, let
me do this astrologist right, And so I gave her
my my middle name. I gave her the time that
I was born and the location. Okay, and that was it,
and she went on on a tear. I learned things
about She revealed things about myself that I had long suspected,
(35:34):
and she, you know, that, sort of confirmed it. And
now that I have put into practice some of the
things that I learned that were lying dormant, I'm eager
to do it again to to now that I'm coming
with a different energy, it's a different time. This is
also like maybe like the last one was a year
and a half.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Ago, so it's time.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
It's time just to see. And I'm in pursuit of
a different I'm in pursuit of integrating the titles. I
have to come back into the world. I sort of
retreat it for a bit, not not it has nothing
to do with work, just being a member of society,
and I'm anxious to see how the world responds to him.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I'm hopeful.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
I am too.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
I'm hopeful, I really really am. Now you've been in
this recluse mode sort of working on things. You broke
up with the problem four years ago.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Yes, I'm very single.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yes. Is that so when you were talking about not
wanting to sleep with someone like in the same baths
of the energy exchange, How are you in terms of
dating now? In this stage you're in are we single intentionally?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Do you?
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Are you curious about partnership.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I'm very cute about partnership. Okay, for let me start
with the big thing, and then I'll tell you about.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
A date that I had two nights ago.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
So I believe that I definitely, I desperately am desires
of being a wife.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
You want to be a wife? Have you always wanted
to be a wife?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
No?
Speaker 1 (37:05):
When did this happen? In the In the years you've
been working on the.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Years of working, I realized that my insatiable desire to
take care of someone, I have an insatiable desire to
take care of people. I can't help it. And even
when I walk down the street, I have to not
look people in the eye because I can see into
your soul. And you can too. Yeah, and and and
I and I and and and people. You you said
(37:30):
something way earlier about people take they miss they misconstrued
you're not even retreating, but holding your energy close to
your person as being egotistical or or or flippant or
stand office And it's anything but. And so I you know,
(37:53):
just in life, I'm like, oh no, because I will,
I will connect myself with you in a way that
I don't have time for or wish to. But once
I make the connection, the connection is made and fall
through with it anyway. So with partnership, I feel that
I'm being called to do something else by them in
(38:14):
the world, and that calling is going to force me
to not participate in such frivolity.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Okay, and my frivolity mean.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
I mean I'm I love men, okay. And the door
has revolved, yes, okay, you know in my past, and
I just want to slow the door.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Down like we're revisiting exis.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, I just kind of I And also it's exhausting,
you know. And I want the energy to be the
temperature that I set that we decide on together. And
I want, you know, more fur babies. And I want
my good to not be evil spoken of because you
(39:02):
have to explain what you're do in your private life
as a celebrity that no one's going to the they
remove that past, that you are a human, they immediately
I want to know what's going on, you know. And
and I while I can walk around be like, oh
that's not your amazingess, it'll it'll.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Get it'll get out there there. And so if you
don't want somebody to know something.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
You're going to make sure they figure it out, and
so I just want and let me. I don't want
that for that reason, but I do realize that in
my ask there are things that I have to leave
behind because you have to make room for new things, right,
And so that's part of it. And I'm in the
(39:43):
words of India Irea, I'm quiet, I'm ready for love.
I come on, there's something has risen up in me
that I walk around with and I'm not searching for
me as as much as I was in the past.
I feel found where where I am and I feel
founding out that I'm ready to share it with whoever
(40:03):
you are.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
And you don't worry that it will deplete you.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
No, okay no, because I now know, thanks to Pablo,
what is a what is properly being yoked? Equally yoked?
Speaker 1 (40:15):
I just asked a friend this on a voice note,
no joke a week ago. What do you go on
what I said? What is equally yoked.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Mean to you? When you were in the presence of
the other person and you are not thinking, you are
not searching for your peace, It is just there, the
same way God is just here. They don't need you
to prove or disprove it. That love is before you
and after you, and right now that is the same
(40:42):
energy I want in God, in the.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Flesh, peace, peace, I see Okay, I get it, I
get it. I hear you. I have to know about
the state.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Okay. Well this is harkening back to Pablo give me
that book and me going, oh, I got to sleep
my though.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
So we were in bed and you and the guy
on the data problem okay, okay, And it was great
and he's wonderful and you know, fine, I don't know
that he's my forever person, but do you want to?
Speaker 2 (41:13):
But if he sees this, I don't care. He he
is very mature. And before the date started and we
had food and we're watching the TV or whatever, and
I was answering emails and stuff and I kept apologizing
because I do your life like this is so embryonic,
(41:33):
like I don't, and I'm in your space and I
if we were together, you wouldn't. You wouldn't not be
doing what you need to do. So let me see it.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Wow, your piece, I know your piece.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
But I get hot in the bed, okay.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Temperature wise, so cuddling you hate it.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
I love cuddling.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
But but then in practically practice.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah yeah, So I got up halfway there and I
went slept it in the other.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Room, Titus, somebody's gonna want to cuddle with your hot.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Body, then the room is going to be ice cold.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
What temperature do you used to be?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Sixty one and in the winter I cracked the windows.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Oh yeah, okay, because I just graduated like three years
ago to sixty nine. That's too Oh my gosh, who's
gonna clip that.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
I'm just I.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Just realized, I know sixty nine degrees is oh lot,
oh lo.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
I can't go back now.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
They can't cut it because we fired the person. Oh no,
we hired them a get okay, so they're here. They
a sixty nine degrees is my preferred temperature? Actually, farenheitshaw.
I'm talking about temperature in the bedroom. And I just graduated,
and I have a hard time if it's if it's
hotter than that. But I used to be a person
who was like, I need the room to be warm.
Why would I ever have the air on in the winter?
(42:59):
That was me. Why would I have the air on
in the winter? Why would I have the air on
in the middle of the night blowing on me, Like, oh.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Really, way from me?
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Wow, So you like the winter. You excited for winter coming,
I'm excited. I get scared of winter.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Because I don't like how it gets dark.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
So that's the thing. And I'm a plant and I
genuinely need like light, and so even my apartment in
New York, Like, I think one of the two criteria
I had was I need natural light. Like it's there's
an abundance of natural light and it is not gonna
in any way be obstructed based on where my apartment faces,
and I just like I need I can't. I get
scared winter. I'm like, oh lord, my, I feel very
(43:38):
pist season winter though, where I'm like, I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be sad because it's dark earlier. And as
much as I am an introvert, I'm like, love to
be an introvert in the summertime. But I love watching
people bounce around, you get it. I'm like, but I'm
loving the energy. I'm loving watching out my window and like.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
A well, you love being alone with everybody?
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Yeah, Like the one of the most comfortable times I've
felt was being at a friend's apartment in La We
had like had a rehearsal for sketch and we went
to his apartment and we were just there was no agenda.
It wasn't like we're going to the apartment because we're
gonna gout, We're gonna wing too your apartment, we're planning
to order this. We just were in his apartment right
at this real moment of clarity for myself where I
(44:19):
was like, this is really nice. There's no agenda, and
I'm on my laptop because I have something to do,
much like you and your emails on the date, there's
something that was requiring my attention on my laptop. And
I was like, this feels like family. Like I'm over
here on my laptop. We don't have an agenda. There
was no music playing. We were really just like at
his apartment and I was like, I'm on my laptop.
We've spent the day together. I feel easy, breezy. Everyone's
(44:42):
doing their thing. And then my friend at one point
was like what are you doing on the computer, And
it snapped me out of it and I was like, oh,
it's not as comforty. It's not as comfy as I thought.
But not the friend who owned the apartment, but it
was different and another friend in the group and I
was like, oh see, and I had told him. I
was like, you kind of we talked about it the
next day. I was like you and the the apartment,
me and the guy who goes, what are you doing?
(45:02):
Why are you on the laptop? I was like, you
kind of snapped me out of this. This then space
where I was like, oh, this feels like family, Like
I don't have to be on and like, of course
I'm going to chime in the conversation here or there.
I'm gonna put the laptop away in a second, but
like I.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Were cognizant of what was happening around. Yeah, but you
also felt safe to be doing.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
I was like, yeah, I feel this is so nice.
There's no expectation of me, and for me, part of
like being at home and part of why I like
being on my own a lot of the times is
because I'm like, there's no expectation of me. Like when
I'm by myself, I'm like I can be whatever I
want to be and no one's now scrutinizing my every move.
(45:40):
I still hang out with those friends. I still love them.
There are people that it got very strange with and
I'm sure you experienced that right that it got strange with.
Did you have any friends that like you would be
like this person loves me, but they don't like me.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, my friend and I were talking about that.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, I've had a few of those people. And for why, well,
I had to keep them around because the social circle.
I was not going to not be in that circle
for a certain amount of time based on several different factors.
So to remove myself would only be able to be
to complicate mm hmm matters. And so sometimes I have
(46:19):
to be the the architect of peace, and to be
the architect of piece doesn't always mean that there is
the absence of war. And so I thought, well, let
me just I'll play along for now until I know
that I can permanently remove myself from this cycle.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
And you have removed yourself permanently from the cycle, you
seem to have no problem getting out removing yourself.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
No, no, anymore. I don't want to be anywhere more
than I don't want to be anywhere where I were.
Tightest can't be m hm. And if Titus can't be there,
I want to We can't do that I can't do
it anymore, even like yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Even like hey, TuS, I thought we were about to Okay,
fair enough, I understand, you know, everything doesn't have to
be said, and sometimes things can just are understood. I
don't know what that was, but I feel like it
(47:18):
was good. It was going to be good. Your dad,
you call him dad, biological father, sperm donor what? How
do you actually refer to him if you weren't here, Like,
how would you refer to him in life?
Speaker 2 (47:33):
I try not to. How do I refer to him
to his face?
Speaker 1 (47:38):
That? And then also I just remove.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
The pronoun or the noun whatever it's called, and I
just be like hey, and I get right to what
I want. Oh.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
So there's no no calling hi, vice first name. It's
not calling dad. It's just but so you do talk
to him.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
He will text me. I've asked him not, I've asked
him to leave me alone. Okay. About five years ago,
he I started having dreams about reconnecting and I had
not my current therapist, but my therapist before that said
to me, Titus. My mom had said to me, Titus,
(48:13):
maybe you should call him, talk to him, say what
you need to say and get it off your chest whatever.
I told my therapist what my mom had suggested, and
he said, Titus, you are not going to hear what
you want to hear. If you do it, just know
that it has to be for you, like it has
to be one side at me. I wanted to say this,
(48:35):
not because you are in pursuit of anything. And he
was absolutely right. And I was devastated. And it took
me a while to make peace with my therapists being
correct and my biological father having not having the capacity
(48:55):
to own his part of how my childhood was curated.
And so back in January I texted him after he,
you know, was like happy to hear and I was like,
I said, you're absolutely right, it's going to be And
I wut down the litany of things that I needed
(49:17):
to say to him, and I said, you got to
know this is not an indictment. I'm not mad anymore.
I'm not any of those things anymore. I said, but
I don't have the fervor that you have to ignite
(49:37):
a relationship with you. I can't do that with you.
And I said, you made your decision a long time ago.
I said, if you need anything, anything, I will be there. Like,
no problem. I had the resources, that's not a problem.
But I cannot have a relationship with you.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
And so what made the fervor that you might have
had dissipate because there sounds like there was a time
where you were maybe on the same page about trying.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Well, I it dissipated it once I realized that he
was always interested to atone for he was aware his
guilt was the impetus, not his genuine love for me.
And I'm not going to unlocked that prison for you.
That's not mine, that's yours and me especially once I
(50:30):
understood what was underscoring this new move me entering into
a covenant whereby I would agree to participate in this
non relationship relationship put me in prison, and I spent
forty plus years trying to get out of it, so
I not can go back and see it. Yeah, get
out of here?
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah yeah? How did he respond? I don't care, you
don't care, Okay.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
I blocked it. I understand, and then I later I
unblocked him.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Why do I block?
Speaker 2 (50:59):
I do that sometimes because I said to him, if
you need something, how would you get in touch with me?
Speaker 1 (51:04):
That's true? You did say, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Fair, fair, But I deleted the conversation and then I
deleted it from doing twice ye And so it makes
me sad for him that he can't do it for himself,
that he can't walk himself through his choices. I'm okay
because I raised myself the part of me that needed
(51:29):
my dad. I did that. I got me here. My
mom was great, she did what she could. She's not
without her shit. But you know I I I've done
things where I've had to go back through some extreme
discomfort where I could have at the time responded differently
(51:52):
to a covenant that I had agreed to, and I
didn't hold up to my end of the bargain. I
will never do that to anyone. It's awful. It is awful.
And so if he wants to be free, he has
to free himself. I had to free myself.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
That's fair. Do you want kids?
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Fuck? No, no, no, no, no no. There are too
many parameters. There are two, there's the absence. There's too
many parameters that are absent in the day to day
and globally and on the federal level, that are in
(52:34):
place where if my kid walks out of the door,
I'm not my assholes. Not mean fin to be tight
when I don't know where you are. That's too much.
And I see how he handled himself. Not granted, I
would like to think that I won't do that, but
I can only think as far as wanting to be
in a relationship and having to get up out of bed.
(52:55):
This thing. Then they say when a child is born,
there's a natural you fall in love and information is
downloaded that perhaps you've never knew was there. A new
portal is opened up in your body. And I've experienced
that we're dogs. But I think my children is art.
(53:20):
And I think what I can leave behind that will
go on after I leave here is what part of
my mind I've let be recorded whereby people can listen
and revisit it should they want to. I don't deem
myself some extraordinary thinker that or an extremely artists in
(53:44):
relation to but this is what I have, and this
was the truth in my highverd many years. I will
have been here when it's time to leave, and that's
the that is I can get on board with that.
I can be confident in that that I feel a
paternal instinct about. And that is what rises up at
me when I hear about legacy. I can't do that.
(54:06):
I don't think it's safe for me to do that
in the human form.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
That's fair. Yeah, I understand, and I appreciate that. And
now it's time for a segment called that's nice, But
what about me? It is stupid, fucking dumb. Okay, Titus,
you get it. You're busy with acting, entertainment, projects on projects.
How do I carve out time for myself? What is
(54:36):
your methodology? Do you have two phones? Do you schedule
a vacation every year? Well in advance? Like, what do
you do so that you don't experience burnout? What should
I do and experience burnout? What are your February or
March pisces? Are you February? Okay? This is that's where
(54:57):
the split begins.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
You You're just gonna have to okay, the same way
you are the face of your art, the same way
that you are the face of your yeah, chosen family,
Like you have to act on behalf of of that.
You also have to act on behalf of your piece.
(55:22):
And these three things, while the currency is different in
these planes, one is money, one is a type of love,
and then one is uh self care. They are all
the pendulum swings in terms of how much weight they carry.
(55:44):
And you you have to even if it's a big
money grab or the family really needs you, if you
ain't got anything, or if you're not taking care of
this this one thing you have offered energy and these
other two things. That is murky and muddy and not
as transparent as as it would be were you to
(56:10):
take care of your your health. So you just have
to put out some hard nose and and know that
once I take care of this and I'm in the
right space, I will regenerate these other two things. It's
just as how it is.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
Yeah, So just fucking say no, Okay, say no no, yeah,
And that's a complete That is a complete. Yeah, Okay,
I really appreciate it. This podcast isn't just about you,
and it's not just about me. We also help a listener.
So we have a listener who needs advice. Kevin, you
can play that. It's real life. This is a real listener.
Speaker 4 (56:47):
Hey, I don't know if you're going to listen to this,
but I was wondering if you had advice for making
friends in the city during college. Also, I love you
guys so much. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:59):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
Making friends.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
Since she goes to college in New York, it sounds
like it, Yes, what would you tell her?
Speaker 2 (57:08):
You got time to go out out of your classes
and have a social circle. That are people who don't
who are not in your what you're trying to do,
she's not on the line. I'm trying to don't. I
don't know. Okay, what do you think she's trying to do?
Speaker 1 (57:24):
She's trying to make friends, she said, do you know
the answer was in the prompt? Yeah, trying to make friends.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
I mean, I guess, well, you can't. How old are
you would college?
Speaker 1 (57:35):
Eighteen to twenty two? Eighteen to twenty presumably not twenty two,
given it's sounding like college is relatively new to this listener.
Speaker 2 (57:43):
I think I think social. I think you're you're going
to do it anyways. You're going to be social. That's
that's the thing. Like, you know, when we're in college,
you want so desperately to not be in school. You know,
you want to go out and party and and play
and do all the things. So I mean, wear tight
(58:03):
clothes and like show your boobies and like.
Speaker 1 (58:09):
This is why Titus can't be a dad. You know
what we've decided today.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
I don't know. What do you think?
Speaker 1 (58:16):
You said, I'm a love it to you because I
lead this young soul of stress.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (58:22):
I mean, make friends. What are your interests, Lean into
those interests, meet like minded people that way, and that's
a good barometer for whether you would be friends. Naturally.
You like that, You're like, yeah, you take it between
the two of us. Child, Okay, Titus, I really appreciate
you sharing yourself with me today. I really really really
(58:46):
appreciate it. I know you would not be here if
you didn't want to, So I'm honored you're here, and
I appreciate your vulnerability, and I hope you felt me
hold that. I adore you. Thank you, thank you. And
that was my episode with Titus Burgess. I think we delivered.
(59:08):
We delivered a product, and you might have opinions about
that product, but keep them to yourself, No, don't. Actually,
if you liked the podcast, I hope you subscribed, and
I hope you've left a nice review. That would be nice.
Why not? No one told me to ask you that,
but I just thought that would be really nice. That'd
be very sweet, and I would appreciate it anyway, Titus,
how fun is he. We got a lot of tea,
(59:30):
a lot of juice, and honestly wors chalk full of beverages.
And I have to be that was like a dad joke.
That was a dad joke. Oh boy, I have to
go back to comedy school. If you want advice from
me and Titus in the future, not me and Titus,
me and my guest Titus. Titus may be back. I
(59:52):
don't know if he'll be back. I don't know if
he'll want to come back. I don't I haven't repeated
any guests yet. I'm everyone's again, just like Dad of
the day for But if you want advice from me
and my next guest or another guest, call me. Leave
a voice message. The numbers five oh two eight four
nine three two three seven five oh two eight four
nine three two three seven five o two eight four
(01:00:16):
nine no five oh two. Thanks Dad's anyway, I just
wanted to see if you were paying attention. Call leave
a voice message. I love you so much. I don't
think you get how much I love you, and it's
really fucking me up right now. I'll see you guys
next time. Please come back. I love you, no, I
seriously love you, and you don't have to love me too.
(01:00:38):
You don't have to say it back. There's no pressure
to say it back, But I love you.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Thanks Dad. Is a production of Will Ferrell's Big Money
Players and iHeart podcasts. I'm your host Ago wodem Our
producer is Kevin Bartelt, and our executive producer is Matt
Appadaka
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