WEBVTT - 1979 with Larry Wilmore 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:05.560 Hello all, welcome back to look back at It Back. 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:08.639 We're so glad that you guys chose to tune in 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:12.119 today they're still here and that you're still listening. That 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:14.400 is really what's impressive is. 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:16.320 That you have not stopped listening. 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:21.639 And today's guest, Alex is going to introduce because I 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:23.439 feel like, Alex, you were particularly excited about this. 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:24.680 I'm very excited. 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:24.919 Boom. 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:26.840 I am stoked. 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:32.120 I have admired our guests work since I truly came 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:38.040 into comedic consciousness. What you should be familiar with is 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:41.319 that he co created and insecure alongside East the Ray 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:44.680 created Grown Ishu. He's the executive producer of The Bernie 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:49.080 mac Show, supervising producer of The Jimmie Fox Show, executive 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.360 producer of The PJ is one of the greatest cartoons 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.960 ever created, co producer of The Fresh Prince of bel Air. 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.760 He has written I'm running it Down. He has written 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:04.200 for it in living color, Sister Sister, The Office, the 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.399 Night they show you know him from, then the show Everybody. 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:09.679 It is Larry Wilmore. 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:14.680 Thanks for having me, guy. I add a couple of corrections, 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:19.240 though I actually created the Bringing Back Show, talk about 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.520 it and co created the pj's with Steve Tumkans. 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:23.959 Okay, fixie. 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.280 Those were two career highlights. 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:31.320 Come On creator Larry Willmore. But Larry the year he 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:36.840 chose nineteen seventy nine, And what we like to do 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:40.319 is just kind of get into it in a way 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:42.000 where we kind of find out, like kind of where 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.240 you were and who you were in nineteen seventy nine. 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:49.880 So paint us a picture of Larry Willmore nineteen seventy nine. 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:52.760 Okay, I don't know if I can cuss on the show. 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:56.200 Absolutely can, please, because I'm. 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:59.640 The old as fuck you can't go off star. 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.600 Nineteen seventy nine was my last year in high school's 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.200 year that I grew up in nineteen seventy nine, So 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.960 it was a real transition year for me, and it 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:11.600 kind of sticks out in my mind. 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:15.920 There was some and it's a transition year in the world, 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:18.560 I feel too, you know, there's a lot of residents, 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:21.800 like so many things were transitioning that year. I look 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.080 at it as a year of transition, and I was 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.280 looking up nineteen seven and I'm like, wow, there was 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:28.000 a lot of examples of that that ad nothing to 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:30.960 do with me. That kind of represented transition in the world, 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:33.120 you know, and how the world kind of changed in 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:37.120 that year, and so my life was changing then too. 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:39.120 It but I didn't know how it was going to change, 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:42.200 but it was. It was a really interesting area. 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.079 Do you have an afro? Who's your hair? What is 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:44.639 your hair doing? 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:46.079 What's my hair. 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.760 At that point. I had an afro before that that 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.120 was really big, but I think it was trimmed down 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.639 at that point. I played a lot of sports growing 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:57.760 I grew up in a sports neighborhood, and I have 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.079 a picture. I no picture for my basketball days. My 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.000 hair literally this was in the newspaper. Come on, you know, 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:04.760 my hair was out to hear. But I think that 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:06.640 I think that's my senior year. But I think by 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.400 the time I graduated, I think I had turned it. 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:10.560 Down because you had to get serious. 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:15.200 It was time to start being a grownup. 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:20.799 When I went I went to Catholic school, so part 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.040 having an afrot was my way of rebelling against me. 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:28.640 Yes, uniformity absolutely. 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.359 Was there a particular moment in that time frame or 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.000 in that period that shaped what I would I guess 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:36.880 I would say, like your consciousness or were you like 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:37.920 aware of. 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.119 What was happening in the world at the times. 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.360 Like you know, because that that senior year before you 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.120 get to college, you're so like I can speak to 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:47.120 my experience. I'm like, I felt like I was so 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:48.560 selfishly involved that. 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.840 I kind of did disregarded. 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.240 What was happening around me, or wasn't as conscious yet 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:56.040 about what was going on in the world around me. 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:57.720 Do you could you say that it was the same 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.560 for you or did the time have to call for 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:03.960 a little more immediacy in that way for you? 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:08.520 No, seventy nine was more of a lost period for me. 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:12.960 I didn't quite have the confidence to know what I 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.440 wanted to do yet. I felt like I kind of 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:20.800 failed in school. My family life is not good. My 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.920 parents did divorced years earlier, and I remember our home 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.880 life was kind of disaster at that point. It was real. 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:29.880 It was a big down arrow. But there were a 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.680 couple of arrows in that year that were pointing up 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.040 that I think I appreciated later. That's why I called 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.320 it a transition here, because it was so down for 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:45.280 me in many ways. I really going from that moment forward, 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.640 I started to get a feeling of I have nothing 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.320 to lose because I think the low point. So that's 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.280 what it represented for me more than anything. But I 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:56.880 wish I could say I was aware of things to 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.000 a certain extent, because I was always interested in things. 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:02.680 But there was so much that was a mountain to me, 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:06.800 like not having not really knowing where I was going, 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.400 basically not having any money or any means. You know. 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:13.880 I worked in a gas station that summer. I remember, 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.680 I ended up going to a junior college in that fall. 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.800 Kind of lost, but I started to find myself in 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.880 at terms of purpose because I decided to be a 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:29.520 theater major. A lot of I think, a lot of 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:35.760 escape in some ways, but not involvement yet, not engagement yet. 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:37.200 What George are you doing. 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.440 I didn't do drugs because I was always I'm kind 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.440 of a contrary person, and so because it was so 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:49.680 prevalent around me and I kind of went against it. 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.839 And I was an athlete always, and I was always afraid, 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:54.800 you know, I didn't want to fuck that up because 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.240 I was good in sports, you know, and you know, 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:58.919 I just didn't want to get involved in that. 0:05:59.000 --> 0:05:59.920 He was high on life. 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:04.960 Yeah, that like same kind of way, like what I 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.040 went to All White High School for a little while. Well, 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:08.520 it was very suburban, I should say white. But I 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.080 went out to the suburbs high school my freshman year, 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:13.359 and when I was off there, I was like super like, 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:15.279 I'm from the city and I'm listening to like my 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.719 rap music, and I'm like, I'm not conforming to whatever 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:18.280 this is. 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:19.599 And then when I went back. 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:21.240 To like an industry school, I was like, I listened 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:26.520 to alternative music. What is going on around me? I'm 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.080 gonna do the opposite. I was definitely back out of 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:29.599 a way. 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:29.880 For a while. 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.120 I have always said, of Santa did there exists this 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:36.040 masculine of center black woman, but inside is a white man, 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.599 a young white boy trying to get out, trying to 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:41.080 get out every single day. 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:44.040 Well, music was an important part for me that year 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.480 because I had so few things to rely on. I 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.440 felt like, when you feel lost, sometimes music is the 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:52.680 only thing. Yeah, and what were. 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:54.360 You listening to? Yeah? 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:58.279 Uh. The big thing that year was this, here's where 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:02.560 the transition was. So I'll call it black music, you know, 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:04.760 one of a better work. But some people call it 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:09.960 disco or whatever. But my friend, my best friend, still 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:11.960 my best friend in the world. His name is Wreck 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.760 and he had. We were two of the only black 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:17.960 people in our class at the school, and he had 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:19.480 come from New York. He had been from New York. 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:23.840 He was from the Bronx, and New York had just 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:28.240 started doing what we called mixing music on the radio, 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:30.040 you know, where they would have DJs come on and 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.360 they would do these mixes, and they weren't doing that here. 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.120 They would just play records, and so he would bring 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:36.280 back tapes of it. I'm like, this stuff is fantastic, 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.000 you know, this is great, and so I was really 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.120 just listening to that kind of you know, it was 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.160 really the early hip hop that my ear was listening to. 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.840 And you saw the beginning of hip hop. Yeah, I was. 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.920 There at the beginning and was and my soul was 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:53.360 a part of it. So nineteen seventy nine was a 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.120 year rappers the light came out, and for me it 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:01.520 was huge because we had talked about because of some 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:03.480 of the tapes that I had heard. I heard the 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.920 DJ's using the breaks in the songs. There was a 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.560 song called a tsop by MFSB that had it was 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.120 called the Message, you know, and there was that was 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:15.480 one of the first breaks that TJ's used to do 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.320 you know, rapping over and stuff, and it was it 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:21.360 was so cool, you know, and I was like, man, 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.320 that's dope, you know. And so when Rappers to Light 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.040 came out, we already knew that technique. You know, they 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:29.720 were using the Chik song good Times you know today. 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.160 So it was a validation of what we were listening 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.240 to up to that point, okay, And it was so 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:38.760 exciting to me to hear that validation that said, oh, 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.000 now everybody's listening to the stuff that we've been listening 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:43.199 to right well, to be there at the beginning of 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:44.800 it was so exciting. You know. 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:45.880 I'm glad. 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.560 I'm glad you bring this up, Larry, because I don't know, 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:50.800 I don't know if you've seen or heard this online. 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:55.480 There is a conversation presently taking place where the rappers 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:57.520 up today, and you know, it's a lot of like 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:00.560 trap rapping and like mumble rapping. 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.199 And there are a lot of young hip hop artists 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:03.800 right now. 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:07.120 Who are revisiting or for lack of a better looking 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.040 back at you know, the rappers delight in the beginning 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.920 of hip hop, and they're they're fighting back against the 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.640 claims that they're that the present day hip hop or 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:21.280 present day rappers aren't really rapping about anything, and it's 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.280 kind of mumbo jumbo. And the young rappers, the gen 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:28.360 zs and like the young millennial rappers are like, how 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.320 is anything that we're doing anything different from hip hop? 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:32.720 The hippit the hop hip hip hop? 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.200 Like, like, y'all, how how is that any different? So 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.400 I'm curious to see, well that I would love. 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:44.600 Well, the difference is because that was rebelling against something. 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.480 Even though today you can say they weren't rapping about anything, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.560 the fact that they were rapping was the rebellion itself, 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.880 you know, the fact that they were taking They weren't 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:56.240 They didn't come up with this music that was sheiks, 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:00.560 that was good times, just boom boom boom and just 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:02.959 rapping over that and it's like, wait, why are they 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:05.680 doing this? The rebellion was in the form that was 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:07.439 the rebellion that what they were. 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.160 That was the radical, The radicalness of it was what 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:10.679 they were doing. 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.120 Radicals was the form. Like if people talk about the 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:16.240 Beatles Beatles was one of my favorite groups, and then 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:17.960 say they were singing I Want to hold your hand 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:20.760 and everything, Yes, but it was the form that the 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:24.040 the Beatles broke the form. It doesn't matter that they 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.559 were saying about holding your hands, you know, their hair 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.800 and how they looked, and they embraced black music like 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:30.679 nobody had before. 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.559 And there's another big difference too, and that is that 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:37.559 the reason rappers like sounds that way is because they 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:39.000 intentionally wanted to sound that way. 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:41.840 And the reason that these kids sounds that ways because they're. 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:50.560 Hot, right, Larry's remember Larry's music. And also this music 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:55.199 remembers started as they started as house parties. That's how 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.600 it started. So of course you're going to be rapping 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.200 about fun stuff and you want people to party, you 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:01.680 want people to keep. You aren't going to get people 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:04.559 on the dance floor, you know, so you know, announcing 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.040 who you are and introducing yourself and all that kind 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.559 of stuff. All those things became like staples of it. 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.240 But people love that kind of stuff, you know. So 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:14.120 it was it was, but it was new then. You 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:15.840 had never heard it, so there was no such thing 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:18.720 as a certain type of it. It was just the thing, 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:34.280 you know. 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:37.559 I know you said, Larry that like there was you 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:41.920 weren't necessarily as like a socially conscious. 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:42.840 Or tapped in at that time. 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.480 But there were some things I was curious when we 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.280 were delving into this year that I was like, I 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:50.600 wonder what that must have been, Like, you know, like 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:53.679 we get the first state in the nation to make 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:57.000 Junetee the holiday, and that's Texas. Where are you living 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.400 at this point in nineteen seventy nine, like we're you 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:01.600 had you heard of Juneteenth? 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.320 Ye oh yeah, yeah, yeah, every I mean my family's 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:08.200 from Chicago and oh yeah back from Chicago, very black Chicago, 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:10.240 v in Mississippi or you know. 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:14.000 Traight up Detroit for me, Yeah, you heard of knew 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:18.160 what Juneteenth was. Yes, I was like, you'all just got here. 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:23.920 I always made fun of junteenth, you know, to because 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.480 it celebrated getting news late, which to me was come on, 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:35.800 talking about holiday about time joke. So I never took 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.320 it that seriously young, you know, Texas doing it. You 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:41.760 never thought it would grow into anything else. So I 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:43.360 don't know if I had a radar for that because 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:44.640 it was no big deal for us. 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:46.679 That's guess what I was wondering. 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:48.439 It's like we look back at that kind of stuff 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:51.440 and we're like, oh wow, Like as our jories were, 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:53.960 like whoa that was a moment, But I'm like sometimes 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:55.600 was it wasn't a moment for black people who were 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:56.079 just living? 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:57.200 You know, were they just like. 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.880 It wasn't It was like they your moment. A bigger 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:03.839 moment was a couple of years later, trying to get 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:08.920 King's birthday a holiday. Yeah, Stevie Wonders song coming out, Yeah, 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:11.880 that was that was so much bigger now everybody was 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:15.000 conscious of that. But you know, I still I do joke. 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:20.960 I've been doing standing again lately, Sam, because I say, 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:22.800 you know, there's I was talking about white guilt and 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.040 black people. We don't have guilt as a group. I 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:26.600 mean I have a little bit of guilt, Like I 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:28.800 still feel bad about tricking white people and thinking that 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:30.640 black people really care about Junete. 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:35.480 Just wanted the day off, that's all. 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.319 You know. Now it's a holiday, still a wowed to. 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.360 Meet that white people get to be off of work 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:46.840 on a day where it's wold to even have it 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.000 as a holiday. 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:47.560 That. 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:55.199 They have to they have to do. 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:56.560 The white people should be in service to black people 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:59.880 on June specifically, or you. 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:01.839 All in three weeks later said I just heard we 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:08.640 were working. I just got the news. You know, that's 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.880 how you celebrate your team gets Yeah, tell people. But 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.640 now I was I was conscious of news events because 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.480 I was always kind of a news junkie, and the 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.640 big event that year was Iran, which ironic, ironically here 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:27.120 we are resonates this year because it's really almost the 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.440 same type of thing. I was very conscious of what 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:33.400 was happening there because you know, we had the hostages 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.640 taken him, and so I was very much into that 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:38.760 at the end of that year. 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:42.880 And Jesse Jackson got the hostages. The Black Hostage is released, correct, 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:45.000 I mean Jesse. 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:48.640 There. The appreciation for Jesse, you know. 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:52.840 His fingerprints was going so much of American ideas. 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:58.040 It really is amazing, you know, Yeah, he was, he was, 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.200 he was a special and some of those things, you know. 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.800 And they weren't interested in the Black hostages so much. 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:05.680 Time, which is beautiful. 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.120 Yeah, which is sometimes because I. 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:18.120 Just also like that they recognized we really hold no value. 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:20.920 This isn't a good negotiations. 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:24.120 Once then we are not a good. 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:32.160 Exactly. It's like, wait, I can't go to I remember 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:33.520 what you don't abuse me. 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.040 When something was like little and they would be like 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:39.280 talking about like Iraq and I ran or something in school, 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.280 and they like they might Boston or they might do this. 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:44.240 In my mind, I always like, well, they're not coming 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.960 to Dorchester. They don't they don't care what we're doing. 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:52.440 Yeah, I always think I remember during nine to eleven, 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.040 like people in Detroit getting people in my school being 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:56.840 picked up from school. I'm like, I don't know if 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.760 they're coming over here, dog like coming to they not. 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.640 Well, people don't realize sometimes white supremacy is your friend 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:07.520 doesn't have to be Larry. 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:09.040 That is the kind of sound by we are looking 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:09.920 for on this podcast. 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:16.320 People are always so negative about white supremaci upside they 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.600 never do. They never do. It's like I always say, 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:21.840 the thing that runs slavery was racism. 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.040 You know, like all with all the stuff that's going 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.560 on right now, is I read? I mean right? 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:31.280 And I was, you know, getting on I've been flying 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.400 a lot, and I live in Atlanta, and I'm you know, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:35.920 flying out of Atlanta and one of my officers like, 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:37.520 you got to be careful on new planes, you know, 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:38.760 you don't know what they might do. I'm like, they're 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.960 not taking a flight from Atlanta, no two hour flights, 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:46.320 and they're not taking a plane for the black folks trying. 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:47.000 To get to New York. 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:55.360 That's not making a statement that I'm playing, just playing. Yeah, 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.000 black Hollywood going from Atlanta to New York. 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.600 No more worried about a flight out of Logan, you 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:10.560 know what I mean that that might get. 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:09.240 Will you be terrorizing today? 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:16.680 No connection is getting on the plane getting off? 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:22.119 Yeah, it's like the next one. We don't see the purpose. 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:25.280 Where's the flight going to main? 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:34.959 Is there a layover? All right? The layovers and Detroit? 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.280 That's okay, come on, And that's and that's where I 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:42.960 come in. We're saying, we say, Larry. Earlier, you mentioned 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:47.200 that you were a theater major, which made me, uh, 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:51.720 which made my ears park up. So you know you 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.600 you you were, you were a theater major. We fast 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:58.120 forward to a Living Color where you create iconic queer 0:17:58.200 --> 0:17:59.360 characters for the nineties. 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:01.119 So sure, in your. 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.680 Time as a theater major, what was your like relationship 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:07.040 with like the queer community, if you had any sort 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.000 of like you know, interactions with them at all at 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:10.400 that time? 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.920 Sure, I mean, well theaters where the queer of course. 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.280 I'll tell you my first big running where really I 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:24.720 had consciousness around it was I got my first break 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:26.439 when I was still in college. It was at the 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.520 Market Tape perform. It was called the Improvisational Theater Project. 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.359 I just plucked into an audition and I didn't. I 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:34.679 was a stupid kid, and I was even like when 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:36.920 I finished my edition, I say, I said, well, Larry, 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:38.880 how can we contact you if we want to hire it? Go? Well, 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:40.560 I really don't have a phone right now. I could 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:45.480 call you guys, you know, that's that's right, And and 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:49.240 they actually hired me. I was I auditioned for an understudy, 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:50.800 but then they hired me for a lead because the 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:52.720 person who had had the lead had just left, and 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:57.040 that was Forrest Whitaker. And Fort and I have been 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:01.640 friends already. We had done this summer of just some 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.240 friends getting together kind of doing like this show. I 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:09.639 did like a little like comedy monologue type thing, and 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.000 he did a dramatic thing. So I hadn't known Fort before, 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:18.639 but so our producer, Philip Penberg was his name. He 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:23.399 had a husband, you know, and like in nineteen eighty one, 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.320 and I'm like a husband that was him, but. 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:27.840 No papers with spots. 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:32.440 It was so it was such bring. I was so lucky. 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:37.080 You guys, because I got to see such a normalization 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:41.919 of what that was rather than having whatever about it, 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:44.280 you know, and the way he talked about him and 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.560 everything and all that stuff, and I'm like, Okay, why 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:50.080 are people tripping about this? You know, like I got 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:52.320 to see early in So I was so lucky to 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:56.720 know somebody who had it, not just a boyfriend, but 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:00.480 he was had an instant he had that was his husband. Yeah, 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:04.160 it's different when it's when there's an institution involved. 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.760 This, Larry, this is what me and sim has been 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.720 talking about on ground You were a ground zero hip hop. 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.480 You were ground zero of gay relations. 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.080 Absolutely, you are a man at the epicenter. 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.639 Yeah, we're lucky, way ahead of your town. 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:25.560 Guys. That was luck, But I considered myself that's a 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:31.399 blessing to experience that because, guys, the prejudice against Caves 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:36.119 was huge. I mean the head wind was huge in 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.960 those days, you know, I mean just the ridicule, especially 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.960 in the black community. Yeah, I mean Philip was Jewish, 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:45.280 you know, he wasn't Black. But for me, I was 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:47.600 able to and I didn't have that strong opinion at 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:49.600 that time because even there were some kids who we 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.000 knew were gay, but nobody said anything. It was no 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.480