The Last of the Trilogy - Hans' 3rd and last solo show

In this podcast episode, the host discusses the possibility of it being his last solo show because his co-host, Malik Lumumba, wants to join the show again. Malik was offended by the host's comments about Lizzo and didn't like the host having control. The host believes that the controversy surrounding Lizzo's actions was blown out of proportion by people who wanted to see her fail. He also talks about how entertainers are not always their best selves and shares stories of witnessing gospel legends treating people disrespectfully. The host clarifies that Malik will have the opportunity to defend himself on air and that he is not being kept off the show. Lastly, the host gives a shout-out to Wayne Brady and reflects on his changing opinion of Amanda Seals, realizing that he had made assumptions about her based on her reputation in the industry. He now appreciates her perspective and authenticity. back at theater podcast another solo show with your boy this might be my last solo show because apparently Malik Lumumba has decided that he wants to join the show he wants to come back he heard the last show that he posted and apparently there's some things I said that he didn't like and he doesn't like the idea of me having this much control and having a voice and getting an opportunity to attack him quote-unquote without him being there to defend himself and you may be asking what is it that I said that he's so offended by he was offended by my what I said about his reaction to the Lizzo situation so I think the next time you hear Malik on the air that's one of the first things he's gonna want to talk about now what's strange about that sorry for drinking your ear what's strange about that to me a little bit of an old issue it died down the way I thought it was gonna die down it didn't end up being sort of the monstrous thing that we thought I think she lost a couple sponsors lost a couple things she'll probably learn become a better boss learn that she can't treat her tour as a big sorority she may have to do some internal searching and how she addresses other people and expectations as other people but I don't think this made her a terrible person I think this became a big thing like I said because I don't I think there were people who wanted to see little fail they didn't like how free Lizzo was and they a lot of people felt like honestly just because of her shape that there should be certain things that she should and shouldn't do in the public sphere and I think watching her win by winning I mean that she seemed to have this success success that she worked hard for I mean Prince early on early on in her career signed her to his record label recognized her talent recognized that she had something and I think then he died like six months later or something so Lizzo had spent a lot of time trying to make it and you know just created a niche for herself and I think there are certain segments of society that didn't like it I don't think she handled the success well allegedly but I do think the reaction to what happened the the way that people were just so oh my gosh how could she treat people this way is false there's there's a certain well-known I'll say let's say this person is from a city that's in between Washington DC and Boston I'll do that who has a reputation for openly hating in particular men who have a certain sexual preference and this person uses a lot of language around that and we don't hear these things because people like this person and maybe this person learned early on that they need to be more careful with how they address people and they've learned to sort of tamp it down so it doesn't come out but I've heard you know on the back end how vicious this person is with people who have a certain sexual preference but that person is universally well-liked so people are not always good I personally witnessed a gospel legend I witnessed I think I've actually told the story in the air so I won't because I'm saying stuff I'm not gonna say names but I witnessed a gospel legend just treat a person with such disrespect I couldn't believe it I just couldn't believe what this woman was saying out loud in front of people I couldn't believe it so hearing a singer not be great I witnessed that's one legend I witnessed another legend straight-up accused people of stealing when there was no chance they were stealing and be really terrible and you know all I'm saying is I was not surprised that an entertainer was not their best self and for us to act like the world was ending it's kind of silly so that that was my criticism of men like because I know what he was gonna say and you know to to be fair to him he's not here to defend himself so obviously I'm not keeping him off the air when he gets an opportunity on the air he's gonna say what he has to say he's gonna defend himself we'll have a great debate about it and it's gonna make for a great radio as he likes to say so don't feel like you know he's not being kept off the air he wanted to do a show but then I'm like life circumstances have changed he's got nine to five and the free time that he has he likes to spend with his family and I'm not putting any pressure on him to like you gotta do you know I'm not pushing him to come into a show I'm giving my homie space to do what he does and we're gonna we're gonna do a show soon this is probably the last solo show he he's he's coming back he ain't trying to have me on the air saying and doing what I've been saying and doing let's just put it that way but I'm glad I'm glad the homies coming back you know I'm saying it's it's I like to I like doing these shows but uh you know it's you know as he likes to say it's it's two people was to host not one when I go when I was busy I was asking him doesn't do it just to do some solo shows I'm not you know I'm not your substitute blah blah blah blah so he made a big deal I'm willing to do the solo shows I used to hate doing solo shows I used to think that I had nothing to say in it but I like talking to y'all one-on-one before I go on I want to say two things I've been meaning to say first well let me say this first one shout out to Wayne Brady I just want to if you don't know anything about Wayne Brady there's a podcast I cannot remember who is the podcast host but I Wayne Brady did a long-form interview and it's riveting and he has a very interesting story he's a very interesting guy and just shout out to him I know he's doing the Wiz on Broadway but he has a very very interesting story that I was just telling my wife this morning how much I admire him he revealed a lot in this podcast about how he was raised the circumstances of his life and where he is now and I always sort of admire black men who are sort of open and vulnerable about their lives about the pain in their lives about the triumph in their lives it's a I was telling my wife it's like it's like a dual thing it's like we get overly applauded for doing so but we do it so rarely that's that's why people applaud us when we when we're sort of vulnerable and open so shout out to Wayne Brady just a random shout out I think he's an interesting figure I think we don't give him enough credit for who he is I mean we like to make fun of a certain type of black people in particular a certain type of black man so just shout out to Wayne Brady but shout out and it wasn't that people say that that we must protect this person at all costs I feel like I owe Amanda Seals an apology and I haven't done anything in particular or said anything in particular about or to Amanda Seals but you know how sometimes you feel some kind of way about somebody in your head like you make an impression about them in your head and you hold that impression and that's like you filter all your interactions with this person it's just purely like in this case internet and then maybe like that changes and you almost feel contrite I feel that way about Amanda Seals. I went to one of her shows I want to say it was pre-pandemic in LA I think there was a funnier guy I can't remember what she called him and it was the one that she had with in LA with Robert Glass this is when the shows are really small but they were starting to gain momentum and it was good it was really good it was really interesting I kind of had I was like okay I like the way she sort of handles her emcee duties but I wasn't like I remember people were hyping it up it's gonna be this huge she was gonna hugely funny and barrel of laughs and I'm like I don't really see it and then you know there's this controversy around her with Insecure there's controversies around her with the talk show that she was on and she had a certain type of reputation in the business and the reason I'm saying I got a kind of like giving apologies because I think I fell in the trap of expecting a black woman to fit a certain mold whether I did that consciously or subconsciously I know I fell into that trap and what made me check myself was I think I was like hate following her on Instagram and not hate hate but just around who's this you know I see I want to see the next failure in terms of like following her but I think I start following I started following her she would post these interesting sort of reactions to stuff in pop culture particular pop culture politics in particular I'm just kind of just follow just you always say something that made me go huh and the more I would see these things like one day just flip I was like oh this person one obviously obviously loves black people deeply and it wasn't that I didn't think that that wasn't the truth but I thought that it had an agenda attached to it and I'm not saying that it doesn't but I I feel like there is a there's a just a this is just a truth in what she's saying and like in terms of her authenticity in her relationship and I remember one day I was watching I was like I had to say to myself you have to apologize like this person is important to our culture and you gotta like sort of so you know all that to say shout out to Amanda Seals by no means in any circumstances did you did that you don't need my cosign in any effing way so this don't take this as that that's just me almost talking to myself out loud and admitting that it was a lesson for me and not making these quick judgments of people and making assumptions about them in particular when it comes to relationship to the business because I think I really do feel like if if I had a hard circumstance in this business and I was looking for somebody to process that issue with I now realize that if I had an opportunity to talk to somebody like Amanda Seals that's who I'd want to talk to like I don't want to talk to her because I think she would put it in this larger perspective and I appreciate that and that's something I'm realizing about this business with all the friends that I make a lot of people that I know that that is becoming more and more important to me because it's the only thing that lasts is your authenticity if not your desire to be around and do and be seen and be on this like none of that shit's important no that shit is real and it's the stuff is the reality of life that's really the that where I want to be and I feel like she represents that in a way that's not like she's also like not trying to like like she's a professional like she's she's and it seems like she's been doing whatever she's been doing for a long time this unique path and so yes she's this complex fully formed human being and that's interesting and so shout out to Amanda Seals just shout out just like you don't need to be seen by me you don't need to be recognized by me in any way shape or form I'm just a fan on the sidelines yeah just waving the flag love what you're doing there was something else I wanted to talk about let me think about it well the strike is still going on that's a thing people keep on asking when they think I think the strike was gonna be over at this point I don't think there will be any productions before the end of the calendar year it does not seem like the sides are having any real conversation there are people like people should be talking and they should be working this out I if I'm being fair and honest I don't I think what the writers are asking what the actors are asking I don't think they're asking for much quite honestly I don't they're asking for much I almost think they're under asking and I think I'm gonna be I'm be honest with y'all I think you as consumers you give these companies too much power let me go on a little corporate rant I think mergers in the last 25 years we've had more mergers in the last 25 years I think than we've had since they've made rules against mergers and I think we as consumers in general in this country are treated like trash you get on a plane you get terrible service and it's not your flight attendant that's a problem or your pilot that's a problem right it's I'm not blaming flight attendants I'm not blaming airport workers I'm not blaming pilots I'm talking about the companies you get terrible service when you rent a car right there's like now there's only like three companies that own all the rent-a-car companies all the major airports you get terrible service you go to the airport get a car you know recently my wife went to get a car when I dropped them off my kids to college and she waited like an hour you know and this is like typical and and I know from all the traveling I did I was I became very aware about what rent-a-car company I would even use because I would have bad experiences with rent-a-car companies because of all the consolidation that has happened in the airline industry that has happened in the insurance industry that's happened in the media right there's like three companies that own all the media type think of all the media titles all the media companies you can think about only three companies that own them at this point it's like BlackRock and Vanguard I think are like the only they own eight percent ten percent of everything which means they have controlling shares so we as consumers have allowed this to happen because we have not put enormous pressure on the representatives to say do not allow these mergers to occur if you have cable you know how terrible your cable services and your cable service generally is allowed even before some of the recent mergers have happened was allowed to have regional monopolies when there should be no regional monopolies any cable company should be coming to any region and post up and do what they want to do and we as consumers need to stop allowing that to happen let me go on this this rant I used to use this app called autumn and what this app did was it would curate from like 60 different magazines long form articles anything that was like 1,500 words to 3,000 5,000 sometimes 7,000 word articles long form stuff curate them based on your interest and you could pick and then it would they would have people read these articles and you could just listen to them so it would be as a person with ADHD it's like perfect way of like consuming stuff because you know we were super curious we want to know everything but it's hard for us to sometimes sit down and consume stuff like in terms of sitting and reading sometimes it's hard for me to read sometimes it's not like I was a voracious reader for a very very very long time but I find sometimes that listening to something it's easy for me listen to a book versus reading a book is if I sit and read the book I could lose interest as I've gotten older I could lose interest faster so but I would listen to a book and hold the interest way way longer and I used to just it I just like knowing different things about stuff that I don't know about it doesn't matter what it is so I would listen to all kinds of articles political articles from left and the right in the middle and and foreign I'm just learning things autumn was bought by autumn used to pull articles from the New York Times the New Yorker the Economist like you name it Vogue magazine any any magazines that do long-form articles and it was bought by the New York Times in January and this past July the New York Times just stopped the app they're like no you can now you could do the New York Times audio which doesn't pull from as many doesn't curate from as many magazines because obviously they probably don't want the competition and then we and it's dumb it's like a dumb corporate thing because autumn made me consider getting a New York Times subscription because there are so many great articles I was getting from the New York Times and it made me consider getting an Economist subscription and maybe consider getting like a New Yorker I used I used to have a New Yorker subscription that's one of the subscriptions that I've had for a long time I think about getting it again the Economist in New York I think the two magazines I'm thinking about getting and they pulled they stopped the app and then they didn't transition to anything they didn't say okay all autumn members this is what you're going to be in the autumn is the AUDM and the transition was horrible they didn't they didn't bring those new customers over then say hey they didn't do anything they just and really you know what they did they killed the competition autumn was competition they had this audio division they essentially copied what autumn was doing there they started recording their articles and they probably found that you know why would I get a New York Times subscription when I could listen to the best articles from all the best magazines all over the world and any interesting articles be small magazine but it's from all over the world so they just killed the competition instead of being a better source and giving me a reason to do it the corporate thing to do is to just kill the competition that's the capitalist you know thing to do and it's bad for the consumer because now one they didn't they didn't help transition me into say hey come into our ecosystem so we're going to transition you we know they could have done that through the app they could have been like okay you're gonna you're gonna continue to use this autumn app for the next six months but it's really New York Times and we're gonna change certain things and so we're not going to change your environment and then we're gonna slowly get you ready to kill this app no it's just like a hard change boom and that happens all the time whenever a company buys another company and it makes sense if you build something like autumn that you could sell it like I'm not opposed to that but I just think we as we never gain when the competition is killed think about I'm dating myself hugely when that scape lost it in an Explorer everybody knows that in X was a terrible browsers a big deal back in the day having a browser to navigate you through the web web and there used to be this browser which everybody agree it was free to download anywhere called Netscape and it was amazing it was the first one that had the user interface as a browser like you you kids now have no idea like you can't even relate to what I'm saying but those of you are of a certain age remember Netscape and Netscape was amazing and who killed it Microsoft killed it because it was far superior to theirs and they were not interested in making theirs better and to this day in an Explorer still sucks and who's come along Firefox has come along Chrome has come along even Apple's Apple has a better browsers in Safari and they've sort of been complacent and so you had these other browsers there's cake there's all these great browsers now people come up with VPN you know imagine if Apple and Microsoft kill all that imagine what we would lose and I think just in general when you think of yourself you see all these people striking do not take yourself out of that like that's you the better that these workers do like the fact that you can start to make a hundred thirty four thousand dollars a year I think the great thing you see what those guys are doing they're not allowed to have accidents I just watch the Amazon driver yesterday he's parked on the road he crosses the street to go deliver this package and the dog comes off the porch is barking barking barking barking at that I couldn't tell the dog was being was friendly or not friendly and the driver you could tell was at the gate trying to decide what to do he clearly wanted to deliver that package to the door but it was about 15 feet that he had to walk and deal with that dog and it was a small dog it wasn't a huge dog but it was not barking quietly and finally and I watched him for four minutes almost five minutes he finally decides to take a picture of the package record what's happening take a picture of the package drop the package near the gate I think he tossed it a little bit he didn't want to throw it there but he kind of tossed it away from the gate took a picture of it again and walk to this thing delivery drivers go through a lot if you're a UPS driver you're not allowed to have an accident if you get an accident you're fired you have to keep a certain amount of time they didn't have air conditioning in the truck so that they're like you're not supposed to stay in the truck long enough to even enjoy the air conditioning so they don't have air conditioning truck so if you're in Arizona you're in California you know this crazy heatwave you're sweltering you get certain benefits but you're doing a lot you're lifting things you're you know I was a loader for UPS for exactly 30 days and it's one of the hardest jobs and being a driver is a better job but it's not that much easier right all anybody that delivers anything if you watch those men and women deliver it is not an easy job when you're in that truck you have to park the truck you have to keep from getting robbed you have to keep from getting into accidents you have to keep things from from hitting you and falling on you and you have to deliver these things to your customers in a way that that helps the customer and doesn't disrupt you know you can't block things so it doesn't disrupt their their their flow it's a lot that goes into that so I don't mind somebody who when I walk into a Target and there's everything that I need and somebody pays $174,000 a year for that I don't have a problem with that and the idea that because the person is a delivery driver they shouldn't make $174,000 a year like whatever job you have you probably need to be making twice as much so I don't understand this thing in this country where we down the worker well like when was that a thing why do you why do we hate people that work with their hands and their bodies what is that in this country that we only admire doctors and lawyers and financiers and rich people who don't do physical labor and we hate people who do physical labor I've talked about this on this podcast and early on in my career I will come across producers that look down on me because I had to move cases they they they look down on you because you're moving this is as if you're not ambitious enough I've heard somebody say to somebody a director say to somebody oh you've been doing this below the line position for 20 years don't you have ambition working with your hands is not a lack of ambition it's a noble thing to use your body to know that your body can accomplish something not just your mind it's no less noble than your mind I admire people who can do things with their minds I do things with my mind I do a lot of just things with my mind but I relish the opportunity to do things with my body to build things to do things with my hands to use labor to accomplish something and we have gotten to this point especially I'm always I'm particularly talking to people of color we need to stop doing that we need to stop doing that there's nothing bad about accomplishing things with your hands that is a noble thing that is a righteous thing it's not something to look down upon and we do we we do we look down on people who work and that's a strange thing because it doesn't seem like when you don't work with your hands you don't do stuff physically it doesn't seem to benefit you in terms of being a better person you may be rich but you're you know how many how many people who are millionaires a billion years have you heard are like decent people like just good people like have you heard like people who work with them have you heard rumors like yo this person is like they're like like they're good people in all circumstances it's not just when the cameras around people around or when there's an audience but like when nobody's watching when they don't think anybody is paying attention they're good man it they treat people a certain way you don't hear that often because I because I think there's something when you you don't physically do stuff I think you can lose there's a certain connection you lose to yourself if God has blessed you the ability to physically do things some some of us are different circumstances have to use what God has given us differently but if you know circumstance where you you are able I think there's nothing wrong with that and so when I look at the labor market I look the way in America that we treat people who are laborers and explains why we have the attitude that we have against immigrants we have the attitude that we have whenever somebody like a teacher says I want to be paid more you have you know the Republican debate happened and it was fascinating you know Tim Scott it's our teachers union it was keeping keeping our students down I saw this clip Vivek I don't know how to say his last name forgive me for that the new guy the Indian East Indian gentleman of East Indian descent and this is trying to be hip trying to be of the people so he's being interviewed by this young black woman she asked him hey what would you do about housing you know what you know cities are trying to figure out how to deal with housing and Vivek says yeah that's a that's a that's a that's the federal government it's caused that problem there's not enough housing which is true so there's not enough stock none of inventory and the reason is out of inventory because the federal policies are keeping you from building that is such absolute bullshit the number one reason is not enough there's two reasons there's not enough housing inventory one in 2008 we had a housing crash which caused anything having to do with housing to be a losing venture so when we had that housing crash in 2008 if you are a mortgage broker you're gonna lose money if you're a real estate agent you're gonna lose money if you're a home builder you're gonna lose money because there is no building going on you could build something I was gonna buy it because nobody was in the circumstance to buy it so a lot of people who worked in housing stopped working in housing they went and did other things and when people started building homes again there was a limited number of people building homes the average age of a contractor now like 54 years old and for a long time this country the average age of contractors like 29 that means we're the people who are building homes are getting older and older and we're not replacing that knowledge base so unless federal policy changes and by federal policy I mean getting high schools to do shop getting colleges to honor things like shop and steelworking and and electrical and plumbing we're gonna have an issue there's no you know we don't have enough builders to build enough houses we're a million and a half homes behind but a lot of the reason we have housing issues is because of local ordinances there are so few things of the federal I'm a I'm a I own two homes I control to two other properties that are not directly in my name but I help control and manage and all and so in all for these properties anything that I could do to increase stock in terms of creating an apartment or something for housing is 100% directly affected by local ordinances by local codes I have an entire apartment in Connecticut that I cannot rent because it is the zoning change while we own that property and we have not been able to get a variance and we cannot be explained why we can't get a variance so a lot of these local politicians will tell you this and it's not the case and it's because to bring it back to my original point about labor we don't respect people who work with their hands we don't respect plumbers we don't respect electricians we don't respect Mason folks and so we don't have those in our schools to tie it back to education we're not offering a variety of things in education we think education I've heard the governor of Arkansas education is reading and writing no education is not reading and writing education is teaching people how to become lifelong learners that means learning about things that they are not exposed to in their every day the reason you teach somebody about history because if they live in a subdivision that's that's brand new then they won't have a sense that there are places in this country that are 400 years old and that will lead them to curiosity to go explore some place that's a thousand year old to go see the pyramids to go to Machu Picchu you know to go to places in in Africa to go places in Europe to go to places in Australia you give them a sense of history you give a sense of mathematics you expose them to mathematics you expose them to physics you expose them to chemistry biology they don't have to become a biology major to understand biology to have a basic understanding a basic understanding of physics so that so that people don't say stupid things like well the earth is flat yeah if you look at it with your eyes it seems flat but if you understand science and how science works that's education understanding how to learn for the rest of my life how to pick up a book the reading is the entry for me to learn and we don't respect that anymore we actually don't want people learning we like when people say dumb shit we like when people say well I can't see it so it doesn't exist you know some of people say I don't trust science but you're saying that literally on a podcast where your voice is being recorded and distributed can be access to anybody in the world like you're you you propagate conspiracy theories over something called the internet do you know how preposterous that is the only people I will listen to talk about conspiracy theories are the Amish because they don't fuck with technology so if they say these microwaves or this that or vaccine that I I listen to them because these motherfuckers when the sun goes down they use candlelight so they fucking serious so they tell me there's a conspiracy theory I listen to them the rest of you motherfuckers are not listening to you because you can't talk about they they they they when you're doing that over the internet when you pick up a cell phone when you use a computer when you get in a car do you know how amazing it is that you could turn a car on do you know what that fucking means to get into a car turn it on and go someplace and every time you turn that motherfucking car on it turns on do you know the amount of technology it takes for that to happen over and the fact that somebody can't even fix that fucking car do you know what a feat it means to get on a plane take off and land safely over and over and over again you know how amazing it is to get on a train and go someplace to me this is this is what happens when you can't appreciate where we are technologically and the way our life if you allow it is there with certain things physically taken away from us so that we have more time just to think about things and to philosophize about life that's why I can't I can't vibe with you that's one of these I'm not that cynical because as tough as things are we're still in extraordinary circumstances and maybe that's what's made me hopeful about stuff is as tough at it so it's really a matter of us talking to each other and recognizing collectively the challenges that's all we have to do we do that identify the challenges and we just have to work collectively no one person has to take this on their own it doesn't work in one person does it all we have to do it collectively and when we do collectively we have to do less effort the effort is less the pain of the collective work is less to tie it back to us identifying with striking workers maybe we should stop buying Apple products maybe we should stop our Netflix subscriptions and say them look treat these people better because if you don't you don't treat them good as a worker you're not gonna treat me good as a consumer that's the God's honest truth all of us as consumers the United States we're being treated by trash by just about every single company there's not a company that treats us with respect I think it's because the American consumer is developing a reputation of consumer that you could treat with any way and they're not gonna react look what's happening in France they raise a retirement age from 62 to 64 and these people are refusing to pick up garbage they're refusing to let the trains work they're refusing to deliver mail and they collectively though the firefighters with the train workers with the wine workers with the trash collectors with the hospital workers collectively shout out to you UPS drivers get that money a hundred and seventy four thousand is the minimum you need to raise your family comfortable in these United States and you know what who else should get a hundred and seventy four thousand nurses teachers janitors if you work at McDonald's you should at least be getting eighty grand a year if you an Amazon driver you need your hundred grand because you need to pay rent you need to be able to buy a house you need to be able to buy a car comfortably I was joking with my wife and we were talking about yeah remember we're like when we were in college each of our kids have a car now they can't they couldn't take them to campus but they each have a car now these kids are lucky you know my son's car is really nice it's a brand new car my daughter's car is really really well taken care of it's gonna take care of it and and we're like yeah man like in college you know a grand guy when I was a high school I was like oh I dreamed of having a car when I was in high school and going into college but like a grand and high when I was high school you got it you got a car for $1,000 you was balling when I was in college there was this training dude he had a job at you he had a job at UPS and that's how I got my job at UPS and the reason I even thought about getting that job cuz this nigga had a Jetta so this is like 94 95 his Jetta was like a 91 red stick leather shit was fast 1.6 turbo and he got it for three grand I was like no you got this shit for three grand what I was like I need to get this UPS job he probably had his job for like nine months saved his money bought himself a whip back then you get a used car for three grand and you got a solid ass used car don't let you be good about maintenance that shit is lasting forever nowadays a solid used car is like 16 grand 18 grand off off the regular market go drive a neighborhood grandma sell her car you looking at least seven eight nine thousand dollars you ain't getting no $3,000 car no more that those days are done so for you if a McDonald's worker wants to talk about they want to make 80 grand a year they want to make $20 an hour that's not great we need to stop thinking that that's crazy that's not crazy the average house is 400 grand you barely able to afford a down payment at $20 an hour why don't we want people to live well that's why we got all these homeless people now you doing okay but you don't want the next person to do okay I don't get it I don't get it I don't understand why don't you want the next person to do well you looking down on the next person I want all these motherfuckers to have jobs that are 80 90 thousand because maybe I could quit my corporate job and go go open a bodega go open a restaurant go open a service because now people have money and they can afford to to use my service and I don't have to work for anybody and I could own a small business who do you think is gonna have a small business you're opening your part always talks about we're the party small business wait where am I gonna get small business from if I don't have customers who can afford my thing we all can't be in the high-end market so I'm a person who doesn't you know I like this UPS driver getting a 174 teachers y'all need to get yours next teachers you know what teachers you need first of all all y'all need to collectively no more supplying your classrooms you can't have a principal you can't have a board you can't have administrators making six figures but you like you like fundraising for the basics of your class that school districts haven't made deals with supply makers to supply these things for the classroom I'm gonna talk about later about my kids being gone but I remember when around this time of year especially when my kids are in public school well my kids are in public school they were in private school for a long time for about like six years and then they went to public school before they end up in charter school and I remember in a local public school we would spend more time and more energy collecting the classroom stuff and it was like oh like for my son it'd be like you need like you need to buy like seven reams of paper you need buy like ten notebooks you need to buy like 50 pencils and we'd be like why do they need so many stuff it's because they were literally almost hoarding the stuff so that if there were years and not enough parents bought they would still be supplies because it wasn't like you gave these supplies and at the end of the year you got your supplies back once you gave the supplies that was it and it was because these supplies were not being given to the classroom but you got administrators making quarter million dollars a year what are you doing in a failing school getting quarter million dollars a year well the culture our culture rewards mediocre leadership that doesn't meet goals in all aspects of leadership in this country your CEOs your vice presidents your directors will not be needing goals we'll get their salary they will get their bonuses it is an expectation when we when we have during COVID when all these companies are begging the government for money and some people had the nerve where you know had the backbone to say okay we'll give it to you but you can't give out bonuses oh if we don't give out the bonuses the people are gonna quit let them fucking quit your company is not succeeding I'm supposed to give you a bonus we allow for failure at the top to be rewarded and we punish the people at the bottom you have parents who blame teachers for schools failing they don't blame school boards they don't blame administrators they don't blame the mayor they blame teachers that's not crazy to you you look at the salaries of people heads of companies it's on average 27 times the average worker and it don't matter what kind of company you talk about you look at companies up and down insurance companies social work companies hospitals it don't matter up and down the people at the top who the company is failing it does not do what it's supposed to do and when they fire you you get you get a compensation back what the fuck am I giving compensation for nigga you fired you getting compensation for you if I get fired don't give me compensation is okay you know what you suck you came in late ten times you had these objectives you need to do it you fired but here's three months severance but if you're a CEO you take your company you get a severance you get a golden parachute they gotta put you out cuz you said some crazy shit you get a compensation package it's insane and it is happening because we collectively are not working to stop it from happening we continue to patronize these companies we complain about Amazon but ain't none of you motherfuckers stop ordering shit out off of Amazon when really the way the trick to do it is you go to Amazon you find the thing that you want Amazon will always tell you of a seller that's selling it just find that seller their private website and just buy it from them the only difference is ain't gonna come in three days and you might have to pay for shipping but at least you cut Amazon out the shit we are losing if we don't stand with people who are like us it's just that simple we will always lose we would just always lose we're never gonna win you're never gonna win you're never going to win you have to do things collectively if you do it collectively that's the way you take away the pain of that action if we do it together then it's less painful if we boycott Amazon together we won't have to boycott Amazon for long then collectively we'll find the alternatives to Amazon and that alternative will be able to to help us do the thing that we need to do collectively if you do it by yourself it's not doing nothing you're gonna you gotta take a lot of pain we want education to be better we have to move collectively if you're a middle class out there you're paying for private school you're being fleeced you're being fleeced and your friends don't want to tell you that you are being fleeced you are not helping your child you're being fleeced because you're not supposed to pay for education in this economy if you pay for college through loans you're being fleeced because unless you steal money you're never gonna make enough money to pay that shit back that's why we're in this loan crisis that we're in so you and your individual family you can't figure that out by yourself you need to get with friends and you all put your kids in the same school so then you can now put pressure on that school to make sure the education is proper that means that you gotta live in the same area you gotta do things collectively if you go by the loan you're gonna pay the price you are not alone you are experiencing everything people around you experiencing the same fucking circumstances and the point of the internet is for you to find that community and to strategize with those people to get you out circumstances so you got a one speak that circumstance to find community around it three move collectively and four don't be surprised when it doesn't go perfectly because it's not going perfectly the way you doing it don't listen to these cynics there's one Chris is I make about men like I think man like is the cynic I was criticizing we have a group chat you let me in his friend's group chat and I went after them because they were talking about politics and they're being cynical and I hate cynical people I really cynicism really bothers me and I don't know if it's because I'm in I'm from immigrant families I'd like when I don't think about America I don't think about it in a cynical way I'm frustrated by what's happening I could see the trends it's not that I don't see the trends but I try not to be cynical because I know through family genetic trauma I'm one step removed from much much worse circumstances so it's not that I'm it's not I don't it's not that I don't have the Hosoka context it's not that I can't blame America for Haiti's situation but I know I'm just not in that situation I'm here I'm still here at the end of the day so I'm just I I don't like cynicism and I don't like people who are cynical and I do believe that we make collective action that's how we overcome that stuff and part of the action is understanding that there will be a reaction so just because you do it doesn't mean the system isn't gonna come back and change a couple podcasts back I talked about what I thought was happening with sort of the dismantling in the sort of reframing of the term black lives matter and the black lives matter movement this idea that black people collectively created this term to crystallize our circumstances such a simple term my life matters and it resonated with this country and it resonated with this country in such a way that it actually started to change shit where we sometimes falter is we are surprised by the reaction of the system to that change all the stuff that you see the voting rights stuff the abortion stuff the rolling back of the laws the the history the school stuff you can't teach african-american studies anymore you can't teach black history so call black history really just American history all this all these attacks on black folks is a direct result of the black lives matter it's not the fact that black people collectively reacted to the the killings of George Floyd and the stuff that was happening it was the fact that the the black reaction had a reaction to the ordinary white and the rest of America that was the reason that the system reacted and we can't just be like oh my gosh the black lives matter people are this or we shouldn't say black lives or we should say well no that's going to be the reaction the system is going to react so now we got to counter react don't let this shit distract you so maybe we don't do it the way we did it three years ago maybe it's not a slogan but maybe it's a financial collective decision maybe it's not this massive thing maybe just start in your community but we're not going to make it individually we're not we are not we are not we're not your your your kids will enjoy a little some you enjoy a little some and then that will be it the next generation won't have anything it doesn't matter how many Harvard's you go to doesn't matter how many corporate jobs you have you will not make the change that you cannot do it unless you do it collectively and when you do it collectively you need to expect a drastic reaction from the system and the collective connection is what helps you in anticipate and strategize against that reaction so that's why I'm not cynical because I know if we do things collectively then anything that comes our way we can deal with but you got to stay collective you got to stay together and you got attempt to bridge your issue beyond your community both King and Martin but just both King and Malcolm both Martin and Malcolm came to a place of understanding that and all the leaders both black white and other got to a point where they understood that the the issues that they were fighting whether it's Harvey Milk you know you you could name Martin it's Fred Hampton the feminist movement Gloria Steinem the black feminist movement Alice what it doesn't matter they got to a point where they understood that their struggle against this system was beyond their specific community it was important that they address the thing in their specific community but if they found a way to bridge and got other people involved that's when true permanent change could happen so when you hear you should be knowing hey they're trying to stop cop city in Atlanta how can you wherever in part of the country how can you support that effort the Houston School District has been taken over by the state of Texas they thought what's the first thing they did when they did that they closed the libraries now if you talk about education how you closing down the libraries make the math math so you have to find a way as a person who doesn't live in Texas to help black folks in Houston fight this system because there'll be a circumstances where you wherever you are are going to need outside help and it may not be the people in Texas will help you but maybe people in Arkansas Mississippi or New York or Florida will help you how do you help the like-minded people in Florida counteract what's happening in Florida the internet helps us make these connections now it's not without its issues because if I can connect with the community somebody else can listen to what we're talking about and what we're planning but collective action does something and I don't have the answers to what the collective I have no idea what to do about the Houston education system about about the state taking over I don't know what to do but I would love to get with somebody who will tell me maybe the people on the ground in Houston could be like this what you could do this how you could support us and then we do a small part maybe it's a dollar maybe it's posting something maybe it's retweeting something or reposting something on Instagram okay I'm going to talk about something a little bit more emotional not necessary emotional but just a different vibe it's been a week now since I dropped off both of my children to college so last Friday I drove down to Greensboro North Carolina dropped my daughter off to college she moved in on Saturday we helped her finish do some shopping Sunday and then we headed back to DC we had a day we got back late like one o'clock in the morning bad traffic on that corridor then we had Monday help my son prep and then we moved him in on Tuesday to his school in Maryland and the thing that I realized was I was now in a new phase of life a lot of people talk about empty nesting and all that and that's that's part of it but the biggest thing sort of I think about was that for the last 21 years I had a specific job as a father I was there to love nurture provide and protect for my two children literally to get them to this point and so for 21 years I focused on that in one way or another and once I dropped those kids off in their dorm and I had to drive away in each of those circumstances that phase of that job was over and because I've been doing it for so long and because this phase in my unique circumstances is ending at the same time I don't have other kids behind these two kids it's not like it's going in phases it's not like I got five kids it doesn't end to the last one it's like it's all ending at the same time that gave me something to pause and think about and to reflect and to reflect about who I was as a father and more importantly though even that in a and maybe I shouldn't be doing this I've been living in the past I've been reliving those moments when they were babies and they were toddlers and and the giggles only kids giggle and they laugh at certain things in the way especially when they're in that three year old stage four year old stage between two and like four sometimes they like they exhaust themselves and the only thing that they want that they want you to pick them up they don't want to sit on your lap they they come to you for comfort I'm reliving a lot of those memories of my children going through their photo albums and thinking about all those moments with them and a lot of times makes me emotional you know and particularly when they were younger I just loved those moments that's the part I loved about being a father and that's gone and it connects me to my parents because I remember when my mother when she was officially in menopause I remember she cried and I remember asking her why you had four kids why are you so upset and she says because the possibility of having another child is over for me and that's sad to me and I didn't obviously could not understand but now I sort of understand there's a ninety nine point nine percent chance I won't have any more children and so all I have are those memories are is that time and I was present it wasn't that I wasn't present it wasn't that in the moment I knew that this time wouldn't last so I needed to savor it but it's still gone it's still in the past and as they got older sometimes I took moments for granted it's not like I spent every waking moment thinking about them I didn't and dropping them off and knowing that they have to go forward and deal with what's coming to them collectively by themselves in some ways and I'm now an advisory role in their life I definitely definitely get emotional and I definitely feel something so that was the major life event for me and I am in some circumstances very sentimental and this phase this ending phase of fatherhood corresponds with what I'm assuming is like sort of you know they say every seven years you invent yourself I feel like I've come to the end of a seven-year period and I'm on the verge of starting a new seven-year period and many things have changed some relationships have ended some friendships have ended some business relationships have ended and I could feel myself changing I think I've mentioned this before I could feel me being a different person and so all of that is fascinating to sort of contemplate and think about and to marinate upon and I think about in the context of me trying to improve myself with actively trying to deal with this ADHD diagnosis and what that diagnosis means for how I'm going to move forward in my life and there are a lot of interesting possibilities but it does make me look back and think about where I sort of failed and again that turns back to fatherhood yeah and so nowadays I do live in terms of my mind when I think about my children I am I you know I see those moments in my head and you know I I give them to God I pray for them nightly and I try not to panic as a parent when things have you know things happen on campus or whatever they're finding challenges and I think about the fact that I dealt with the challenges so if I was able to deal with them they're equipped to deal with them I can't I can't assume that they're not as good as I am because if they're not as good as I am then I didn't do a good job raising them they will probably find their way out of their circumstance better than I could have because they're they're able to pull from a collective experience but these days I'm very very sentimental and this period is a sentimental period now I am definitely and there's some things to enjoy there's some simplicities it's so interesting how you know being this age my refrigerator does not need to be full we just figure out a way to eat what we're gonna eat we're always finding ways to figure out like what we can do and we find that we can just do stuff over let's just do this let's just do that so that's that part of it is amazing and spend time together and rediscover each other but now when I lock up the house I mean I can check those two bedrooms but there's no kids in them the other night after I dropped my son off there's gonna be the first night he's gonna spend his dorm and I couldn't sleep and I went to each of the kids bedrooms I ended up in my daughter's bedroom laying down for about 20-30 minutes I was in my son's bedroom and I just thought about them and for 21 years those extra bedrooms and wherever I was living was filled with those children I actually had to apologize to my mom and dad I think I've told this story before when when my parents dropped me off to college at Morehouse after they dropped me off because my parents were so this is a objective assessment they were a little bit bothersome you know they were calling non-stop and I just stopped answering the phone I just refused to pick up the phone when they were bothering me like going to church I didn't want them to bother me because they'd found a church that was on campus but if you know anything if you have a sociological sense at any college town the churches that are closest to the colleges are some of the oldest churches in the area and there's small dying churches they're not the interesting dynamic churches if you choose to pursue your faith when you're in college and I didn't want to go to this church that was two steps from my dorm because it was it had like six people in it and they were all 70 plus years old and I hadn't found a church yet I didn't want parents bothering me why aren't you studying why and that's what they would do I mean and they were doing it from their perspective it was a way of expressing love and concern but it was it did not come out that thing so I know I went through a stretch there's at least a two-month stretch every like I would call them knowing when they weren't home and leave a voicemail but I would not answer the phone if they called me and I remember my dad's birthday was this week so he's he's in town and we had dinner my sister my wife and I and my parents and my brother-in-law my niece and I apologized to my parents I said look I'm sorry I shouldn't have not answered the phone because and then my mom was like I'll see your kids are doing it to you and I was like no they're not doing it to me and I'm grateful that when I call they answer when I text they respond and I have the technology I can text I can FaceTime so you know my son is you know he doesn't want you FaceTiming all the time so you can send him a text my daughter will you know she'll FaceTime she'll talk on the phone but it's just the circumstances are a little bit easier and so I apologize to my parents because the joke in my family is I was a black sheep of my family but my parents considered my kids just to be easy going kids they're like you know all the grief that you gave us you didn't get that back in your kids and and my parents think it's unfair so like no no the kids you know if I call them they pick up the phone they text they respond I know they're okay but you know I didn't give my parents but I apologize because I was like if they didn't pick up the phone that would be very difficult and so I'm sorry I did actually apologize to them but it's not easy but it's a new phase of life and it's the question is what am I going to do with that so one of the things I want to do is to learn some of the things that I felt like I've not had the space to learn and the strike has helped with that there are areas in my life I want to improve upon and having a slightly lower workload is allowing me the mental space to concentrate on things I want to concentrate on to be just better at whatever it is studying more films as a cinematographer I'm working on putting my these film theories that I've been thinking about and have lectured about but have not necessarily I started writing them down but fleshed them out so writing a document and what I call the black unified film theory a film theory by the way that men like doesn't necessarily agree with but the point is for people to argue with it so it's not it's not about getting people to agree yeah learning relearning some things I used to be I grew up as a keyboardist playing the organ I want to relearn I stopped I literally stopped playing the minute I had children I just stopped playing cold turkey and rarely touched a keyboard I've had one in my house for the last three years and I've rarely played with it so in addressing my ADD trying to figure out how to relearn discipline by addressing my ADD so part of my disciplinary issues is some of it is the ADD's ADD has you doing things spontaneously jumping around so doing learning behavioral changes so that I could re take control of discipline in my life and then that will allow me to learn the things that I want to learn and relearn the things I want to relearn and explore new things and be better and hopefully they'll make me a better filmmaker get back to writing scripts for the sake I think at this point I want to write scripts for the sake of having just written the screenplay leaving something behind just write the ideas down there's power in things coming alive out of your head into the universe there's a there's a power in that and in this culture we reward you doing things immediately but you leave a footprint behind especially if you allow things to come out of your head and into the world just because it doesn't get published in your lifetime doesn't mean it's not alive I was speaking at the Martha's Vineyard Film Festival and I talked about how when Zora was dying and when Zora was Zora Neale Hurston was older and her career had fallen apart and she was no longer respected by her peers and it seemed that she had no audience and she was penniless and broke and when she died she was put in an unmarked grave Ralph Ellison died with money Langston Hughes died with money Jimmy died okay and I don't know if Jimmy is a contemporary but Ellison and Langston were and today the average person definitely knows Zora in a way they don't know Ralph or Langston today her body of work is way more celebrated than than her contemporaries her black contemporaries her legacy literally will live will far outlive Langston and Ralph's particularly Ralph who's a harsher critic and so her work was it was visionary it was way ahead of its time it it was born way ahead of when it could be appreciated and you know understanding the way time works that which would you rather would you rather that you live comfortably in your time period and then you're forgotten and all the work is forgotten or would you have the possibility that your work survives far beyond your lifetime and when it comes to Zora we are definitely looking at somebody whose work is gonna live far beyond their lifetime we're looking at two and three lifetimes possibly more and that's just the result of her putting the stuff in the universe and not reacting to it not being accepted in the media there's no doubt I mean I think I've read how disappointed she was for a circumstance of how depressing it was because she clearly had a sense of how great the work was but she could barely survive but she still put it out there and to me that's interesting now the context I was saying at the Martha's Vineyard was I was telling these very influential black folks that they need to trust the artist that I knew that who I was talking to I knew this is the audience of people who wanted to you know have an influence on the change and the direction of black people collectively in this country but I sort of wanted them to understand that that their role wasn't to visualize the change their role was to make the change happen that the people who would visualize the change are the artists the artists are the ones who can imagine the circumstances in which we can live in they can imagine the future your average billionaire can't imagine the future they just can't they don't have it they're not artists they're they're financiers they're engineers they're they're other things but they're not they're not artists the musician the visual artists the literary writer the filmmaker the poet they're the visionaries they move in and out of time in a way a lot of us cannot and so if you want to build a future you want to imagine a future you go to your artist and you fund their work Europe basically got itself out of the Dark Ages besides the Moors but the Europeans used to fund the artists they used to patronize the artists and the artists would create visual work that we still look at today the only reason we know about the Lords and the rich merchants and the aristocracy is because the visual artists painted them and they featured them in the plays in the books that they created they wrote about them these figures would have been lost to history if it wasn't for the artist because the truth is the wealth the wealth may make it through the centuries but the persons connected the wealth don't so what I was saying to these these influential and rich black folks the elites of our community was if you want to visualize if you want better circumstances for our people in general stop being afraid of funding the artist give money to the filmmakers give money to the poets give money to the visual artists give money to the musicians and let them do what they do because that's the work that's going to last the test of time not the company that you built the company built may last but we'll never remember who's connected will never be connected to it but when you're immortalized by an artist or an ideas immortalized by an artist or an artist visualizes the future it's powerful people became astronauts people invented cars because somebody they read something as a child that sparked their imagination that told them that it was possible so even before the person who created even before they could believe it was possible an artist put the idea in their head so I for me I think it's important because I you know I've run I've had circumstances where people with wealth they don't necessarily understand artists because we are able to create something by the power of our dreams we we remember our dreams and we're able to take the things that are in the head and we were able to put it out into the world and there are other types of people who are able to monetize even the smallest thing around them and those who don't understand people who do not have the ability to monetize and they see the possibility of what we have what we create out of our heads and they look down upon us because we do not think to monetize it immediately right and I'm saying if you're talking about improving the plight of black people over a sort of a future cast you need to partner with the artist because they're going to create the vision and if you fund them they will create the vision and then plant that vision to future generations and it'd be a blueprint for future generations to follow and if what I'm saying sounds esoteric all you got to do is just read a Octavia Butler book you want to understand the power of future vision read Octavia Butler she basically imagined black people in the future science fiction didn't imagine black people in the future and now she was not the first they were actually black speculative fiction works starting in the early 19th century I read an anthology that was like 1899 to like 1950 there's this amazing short story in this anthology about a black guy that invents something that turns black people white and all of a sudden the white people at first were for it and then they were against it the great commentary on race in the early 20th century race in America but so Octavia is not the the godmother of black speculative fiction which is basically the version of black science fiction speculative fiction in my definition basically is like science fiction but taking in the historical context of black folks in America right so it doesn't it doesn't imagine none of this stuff happened it actually takes into account slavery it takes into account black people's role in the Americas and then it reimagines a future based on that that that's I think what I would say the difference between like science fiction and black speculative fiction and black speculative fiction is so powerful so amazing so anyway but Octavia I think is just this great example of somebody who just imagines a future and puts black people in it and then sometimes goes back into the past I mean kindred is such a unique and interesting piece of work like like kindred should be in every single class that's studying the Civil War or that's studying pre-civil war America and here's why like if you're a person that's like I don't want my kids to say this I want to make them feel bad here's why kindred is something that you should champion it's surprising and some people are gonna be annoyed that I'm making this argument but I'm still gonna make it kindred is the book that tells you that despite this history we are now interlinked my circumstances are connected to your circumstances your circumstances are connected to my circumstances so it's horrific and as terrible as those circumstances are we are linked I have no desire to get rid of you because to eliminate you is to eliminate me so even if I want that selfishly it's still the case in her movie in the movie Nikki Giovanni going to Mars she says something fascinating she says if you want to go to Mars you need to talk to black women because black women are the only people who can tell you what to expect in this alien world because black women were brought to America and they were made to work for aliens take care of aliens have sex with aliens and have alien babies when I saw when I heard those words in the theater I oh I fell out my chair like what this is why artists are so important when she says to have sex with aliens think about the though the use of language to create an image that encapsulate encapsulates an idea in history so succinctly this is the power of the artist slaves being forced to breed and to be used as sexual objects objects by these people is no different than you being snatched up and being forced to have sex with an alien not slaves and captured people captured people kidnapped folks I don't want to use the word slave when she uses this she's the word alien it makes such sense and who would have thought of something like that other than an artist other than a poet and she said something interesting this is having and raising those babies so you may react you're not a person of color you may react I don't be considered an alien but there's there's a humanity that she draws in this illustration and she's trying to get you to see the humanity in her use of language that's why you need the fucking artist that's why you need the artist and notice in this country and there's a criticism for you black folks in our cities if you live in a city or if you live in a place with with the urban urban section with with concentrated poverty concentrated black folks concentrated black folks with concentrated poverty those are not the same thing and you're dealing with the issue of crime by the time that 15 year old 16 year old has a handgun who's robbing who's run up on stores and 20 of them run up on the store and they rob a store without a gun or whatever but just take the merchandise by the time you get to there it's that part of the problem you can't deal with you know I got a you got to figure out how to address things so they're not like that when they're 25 right and here's my criticism you didn't do anything when they took music and art out the schools and this is what I mean by you didn't do anything we may have not had the control when they cut the budgets and he got rid of the music teachers but we should have collectively paid teachers collectively to come into the after school programs and then continue the circumstances we know our kids we know what music does for them we know what art does for them we know what them expressing themselves using their bodies and using their minds using physical motion does for them we know it we see it on tick-tock we love it when they do it on tick-tock we can't collectively allow the system to take that away from them because it affects them later on a lot of what's happening this place is a lack of expression of stuff that's happening inside of people art is one of the ways that our people are going to be saved art is one of the ways a lot of this collective angst that has a negative outcome art is the way to stop that shit and if your school system takes art out your school system takes music out you as an individual parent maybe you're a single parent maybe you have tough circumstances you're not going to be able to overcome that by yourself but if you come collectively if you five of you six of you petition that musician that's at that church down the road you might ask the first one they say no you might ask the second one might say no but the third one may say yes and quite frankly you miss a musician in church and you met a musician in church you need to know down the street they don't have music in the in the school no more so you got to do something maybe the first year you do for free but next year you ask every parent for $20 because allowing our kids to express themselves artistically is what's going to save them and it's what's going to give gird them to get through what's coming if we don't gird them they are not going to make it through to get to the next phase because we can't necessarily control what's coming but we can help them get through it and I can guarantee you it's not sending them to private school because if that was the answer black folks have been doing that for the history of this country it has not been the answer it might save an individual but don't do nothing for anybody else and black folks have always won when things work collectively back to the theater podcast this is your boy three-time Peabody winner Emmy nominated things I've worked on I've been Oscar nominated sometimes I can carry a tune sometimes I bench press a lot sometimes I squat a lot lately these days I've been drinking too much soda but your boy is enjoying these solo shows hit me up at at Cineclass C-I-N-E-C-L-A-S-S at Cineclass and Instagram you can hit me up on Facebook but Instagram is a better place don't forget Big Moomba M-U-M-B-A 50 hit him up always don't forget the back of the theater Instagram page backseat theater three T's we've fallen off a little bit but that's just circumstance of life we have not failed that we have just fallen off a little bit so we coming back and when we come back we're gonna be stronger we're gonna have some merch we're gonna rebrand we're gonna do our thing but we don't do this for to make the show popular we do it because we just want to express ourselves this is the way we express ourselves so I hope you enjoyed this show if you enjoy the show don't just DM me post something on your Instagram page I appreciate the DMS I appreciate the text but post something on your Instagram page help me help myself again I'm not trying to make backs back of the theater podcast I'm not trying to make it the next whatever but if there's a community out there that likes listening to what me and men like have to say well you person out there I'm deputizing you to help me create that community there are lots of folks who have helped me do that shout out to Brandon Brandon you know what you do shout out to you Brandon is one of those folks who self deputize himself he brought one angry black man to Pace University he has been a champion behind the scenes shout out to him shout out to Stephanie big ups to you she's been a big proponent of the show shout out to all those Philly folks they've always supported the show they've self deputized so I'm telling talking to you person that you think that I haven't reached out to you set out to Frisco a long time listen to the show if you're still in Alaska holler at us we still love you baby help us do it help spread the word create this community take charge of that because we're limited human beings right we can only do what we can do we're not talking about monetizing the shit we're just talking about creating community just create the community who can't fuck the money we're talking about just creating community creating conversation about whatever is I'm talking about maybe I need to learn something maybe there's a guest I need to bring on so I'm deputizing you you are a member of the theater you are somebody that's in the theater you have a seat in the theater so get your ticket do what you do some of you are no daddy niggas some of your daddy niggas but we're all in the same theater together you know who you are you know how we do you know how we talk the rest of the world doesn't like the way we talk but we talked where we talk and that's okay so thank you for being a part of this community thank you for your patience wherever you are in this country where you are in the world deputize yourself spread the word keep us accountable make sure we post these shows make sure I repost so send me some shit so I could repost because you know I don't know nothing about this technology you know I'm behind you know all I know how to do is to put a camera in my hand and make some shit look beautiful you know the rest of it I do not know how to do I do know how to talk my daddy taught me that but the rest of it I ain't good at so thank you for listening the next show that comes along is gonna have Moomba in it so be prepared we're not used to his voice right we forgot we don't even know what that nigga sound like we don't know if his voice is high we don't know if his voice is low we don't know this nigga lost weight we don't know if he's missing an arm we don't know if he became light-skinned overnight you know how he feels about light-skinned people we don't know if he has a mental illness you know how you feel about mental ill folks we know this niggas alive that's all we know that's all I know he's alive he ain't dead he alive but I don't know his voice sound like so I promise you this though the next time a show gets posted he will be in the chair he he apparently loves the show still look the broad got a job he had life changes and that's why he has been doing the show it ain't no hate thing it ain't ain't nothing like that it's just life circumstances I give him a hard time about it but the truth is it's just like circumstances now he's been feeling some kind of way because he felt like I wasn't doing the show but I'm not gonna blame him for that I know Malik has a limited perspective on shit sometimes you know no daddy nigga you know how them niggas do they get real sensitive about shit so if you're a friend with them or your spouse with them or they're your parent you gotta give them grace that's not they fought that they daddy fought there's all jokes by the way you know I'm just giving him a hard time love you guys thank you for listening I'm gonna try to do it interesting Instagram thing and post a like 30-second clip we'll see how that go down all right I'm out