Speaker 1: Happy days from the Sometimes the most fabulous opportunities come
Speaker 1: my way. Today is one of those days, in a
Speaker 1: time not so long ago, and yet it seems like
Speaker 1: forever ago. We had schools, we had travel, we had
Speaker 1: entertainment venues. They were wide open, we had movies, and
Speaker 1: we had plays. And I had the privilege to attend
Speaker 1: to showing of Hamilton's on Broadway. It was exceptional in
Speaker 1: every way possible. Many of the performances just absolutely stunned me.
Speaker 1: They were phenomenal, and one of the characters in particular
Speaker 1: stood out, Aaron Burr played by Leslie Odom Jr. Whoa
Speaker 1: can that man sing? Can he sing? And can he act?
Speaker 1: And can he dance? I guess I wasn't the only
Speaker 1: one blown away because the performance won him a prestigious
Speaker 1: Tony Award. And guess what that man, Leslie Odom Jr.
Speaker 1: Is dropping in to join us right now on Loves
Speaker 1: Someone Today. Oh My Hearts Be Still. Leslie is gifting
Speaker 1: the world with a Christmas album that was released in November,
Speaker 1: a movie that opens on Christmas Day, and he hosted
Speaker 1: the CBS special A Home for the Holidays to help
Speaker 1: raise awareness of kids in Foster care who need to
Speaker 1: be adopted. So even though Broadway has been shut down
Speaker 1: for months, Leslie has been keeping busy, and we have
Speaker 1: a whole lot to talk about. Right after I spent
Speaker 1: a little time telling you about another fabulous performer. The
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Speaker 1: the most of your holidays with a little help from
Speaker 1: the Home Depot. How doers get more done? Even though
Speaker 1: Broadway has been shut down now since what March, March
Speaker 1: or April, Leslie, you've been keeping busy. We have a
Speaker 1: lot to talk about. We got Christmas music to talk about,
Speaker 1: we got movies to talk about, and we got to
Speaker 1: talk about Hamilton's. I mean, we can't not talk about
Speaker 1: Hamilton's because you cannot. So I went and saw you
Speaker 1: in Hamilton's. You did, and nobody warned me. I mean
Speaker 1: I had heard the rave reviews, I had heard all
Speaker 1: the you know, all the good stuff. But I went
Speaker 1: and saw you in Hamilton's shortly after I lost a son.
Speaker 1: Oh god, Yes, nobody warned me. Lastly, yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: had to take me out of the theater. The people
Speaker 1: I was with how to take me out of the
Speaker 1: theater because I had a small mental breakdown. What an
Speaker 1: intense I mean, every second of the production is intense.
Speaker 1: You know. We had one of my favorite nights in
Speaker 1: the theater. Uh, that moment or for for those in
Speaker 1: your audience that don't know, there's a moment Hamilton's lost
Speaker 1: a child, and there was at that moment in the
Speaker 1: second act my favorite night in the theater. Delilah was
Speaker 1: not the standing ovations and the screaming and hollering that
Speaker 1: people would do, you know, because Len's work, that's what
Speaker 1: it brings out in people. People have this visceral response
Speaker 1: and connection to his music. Um. But there was one
Speaker 1: night where we finished that that song it's called Unimaginable
Speaker 1: and for the first time in my life, I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of theater. The audience fourteen hundred people didn't
Speaker 1: applaud they didn't say anything. They sat there for I
Speaker 1: don't know, six seven seconds, a whole audience of people.
Speaker 1: It was stunning, it was remarkable. It was it was
Speaker 1: like the equivalent of a five standing ovations, because it
Speaker 1: is so rare to stun people into silence. But that
Speaker 1: audience on that night, the way that moment hit them,
Speaker 1: um was probably you know a lot like it. It's you.
Speaker 1: I remember when Lynn wrote that song. Uh, not to
Speaker 1: get all Hamilton, but yeah, when he wrote that song,
Speaker 1: I just couldn't believe it. I thought he had broken
Speaker 1: through to another side of himself as a writer. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just what he did was he put into song yep,
Speaker 1: what it feels like, the unimaginable pain. Yep, he put
Speaker 1: it into song, and it just yeah, it was so powerful.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, but at the
Speaker 1: public theater, it was crazy that this happened to it
Speaker 1: the public theater. I don't It's it's public knowledge. So
Speaker 1: I really don't think I'm speaking out of turn. I
Speaker 1: I you know what, I imagine that they would want
Speaker 1: me to share this with you at this time, you know,
Speaker 1: right at this moment. But when we were off Broadway.
Speaker 1: The public theater is run by this magnanimous, generous soul
Speaker 1: by the name of Oscar Used, this brilliant man, and
Speaker 1: he was soul sponsible for the early development of this show.
Speaker 1: He showed us such support and right away and like
Speaker 1: and gave the show his his brain, his genius, and
Speaker 1: his contacts. And so we ran off Broadway for six months.
Speaker 1: And right before we opened off Broadway, Oscar and his wife,
Speaker 1: their son Jack, their only son, committed suicide. And we
Speaker 1: were all stunned. And when I tell you Oscar and Lori,
Speaker 1: um will they'll tell you themselves. But you know, if
Speaker 1: the show became sort of like church for them, you
Speaker 1: know it was. It really was a bomb for them.
Speaker 1: And they came. Lori came, man, you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of times a week, and we the responsibility that we
Speaker 1: felt during that time to just give her some comfort
Speaker 1: and maybe some joys for a couple of moments out
Speaker 1: of the day. Was we We really took it seriously.
Speaker 1: So I know the power of the show. You brought
Speaker 1: me joy, you brought me comfort, But I was not.
Speaker 1: Somebody should warn people and say there is a song,
Speaker 1: there is a scene that if you have lost a child.
Speaker 1: You need to prepare for because it's almost otherworldly, the
Speaker 1: way that it transports you to that place of grief.
Speaker 1: I mean I I left for the duration the rest
Speaker 1: of the song. I came back and saw the end
Speaker 1: of the play. But then, you know what it did.
Speaker 1: It puts such a hunger in me to learn about
Speaker 1: the characters, like I left there, and I did. I
Speaker 1: dove deep. I did hours of research on on the
Speaker 1: sun Philip that he lost, and on Alexander Hamilton's and
Speaker 1: on the asshole that you played. Mr Mr Burr, What
Speaker 1: a what a perfect name. He was a burr. He
Speaker 1: was a notorious scoundrel. Yeah, among other things, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a scoundrel. He was a scoundrel and you
Speaker 1: played him. Well, is there a bit of that scoundrel
Speaker 1: in you? Oh? Sure? It's in't all of us? A
Speaker 1: friend of mine, it is, it's in all of us.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine said, she's a lawyer, and she
Speaker 1: said she spends it. She gave me this. We were
Speaker 1: at a bar. She had come to see the show
Speaker 1: early in rehearsed so early in previews on Broadway, and
Speaker 1: went to a bar afterwards. And she's a lawyer, and
Speaker 1: she said, you know, um, I just love the characterization,
Speaker 1: you know, with you and Lynn, Um, I really want
Speaker 1: her out to who wrote that that biography of Hamilton's
Speaker 1: what you guys have done? She said, because my life
Speaker 1: as a lawyer, I spend most of my time defending
Speaker 1: people for their worst act on their worst day. You know,
Speaker 1: you imagine you imagine that, You imagine that It's like
Speaker 1: we've all had of just like those moments. If if
Speaker 1: you just looked that snapshot of the worst thing I've
Speaker 1: done on the worst day of my life, and you
Speaker 1: boiled my whole life down to that moment. Um, I
Speaker 1: think any of us could be painted as a scoundrel,
Speaker 1: any of us could be painted as a villain. And so, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not here to make a case for Bird,
Speaker 1: you know it is. I love what what Alexander Hamilton
Speaker 1: himself wrote about Burr years before the two were in
Speaker 1: the duel. He said, Burr loves nothing but himself. He
Speaker 1: is sanguine enough to hope everything, daring enough to try anything,
Speaker 1: wicked enough to scruple nothing. And the way you played
Speaker 1: the character, yeah, you nailed that. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've ever heard that quote before, but you nailed that.
Speaker 1: You were the character that you played was sanguine enough
Speaker 1: to hope everything, daring enough to try anything, and wicked
Speaker 1: enough to scruple nothing. I'll take it, listen. I think
Speaker 1: I had a real love for the guy, for the characterization,
Speaker 1: you know, um, And I don't think I was the first.
Speaker 1: I think Lynn loved him first. You don't write it.
Speaker 1: You don't write a song like Wait for It for
Speaker 1: a character or a song like Dear Theodosia for a
Speaker 1: character that you don't love. And so I think Lynn
Speaker 1: found his way to have compassion for him, and I
Speaker 1: found my way to birth through Lynn. Of course, Burr
Speaker 1: loves nothing but himself, but Leslie loves a whole lot
Speaker 1: of folks and a whole lot of things. So tell me,
Speaker 1: tell me. That's a perfect segue here to tell me
Speaker 1: about the people that are closest to your heart. Uh um, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm talking to outside because like everybody you know, we're
Speaker 1: we're taking this like most of us were taking this
Speaker 1: quarantine pretty seriously. So we gotta we got a full
Speaker 1: house inside. Right now is my wife and she um
Speaker 1: in the living room is doing a Zoom personal training
Speaker 1: session with her dear friend of ours. But they do.
Speaker 1: They've taken their you know, their yoga and their fitness
Speaker 1: stuff to zoom. So the living room is is loud
Speaker 1: right now with that. My daughter is in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: My toddler, my three year old, is in there with
Speaker 1: my sister in law, and they are making what are
Speaker 1: they making, um, a mess? They're making a mess. They're
Speaker 1: making a mess. Yeah, it's a toddler. She's making a mess.
Speaker 1: Some kind of vegan treating there. I have a granddaughter
Speaker 1: who's two, and my youngest son is four, and they
Speaker 1: have to face time each other every morning. Now that's
Speaker 1: their little tradition. So my daughter calls me and then
Speaker 1: the two kids have to talk. And my poor daughter,
Speaker 1: all she does is go around all day long cleaning
Speaker 1: up the toddler's tornado. That's all she does. If you
Speaker 1: have any room on that zoom to add to add
Speaker 1: a little girl, let me know, because that's where we're
Speaker 1: all trying to figure out, you know, how to keep
Speaker 1: these little people connected, occupied and connected, occupied and growing still.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like we we've all become part time
Speaker 1: preschool teachers. It's you know, oh my gosh, if I
Speaker 1: have to listen to one more Veggie Tails song. Has
Speaker 1: your daughter discovered veggie tails? Yet? We're not at Veggie
Speaker 1: Taels house? Yet we are. We are Daniel Tiger, We
Speaker 1: are Blues Clues, Door the Explorer. Those are the ones
Speaker 1: and word party. Look up veggie Tales. VeggieTales is It's
Speaker 1: it's singing and performing vegetables who have no arms and
Speaker 1: no legs. Um, but they have trumpets and trombones and
Speaker 1: and silly songs with larry and no arms and legs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it's quite ingenious. And and I I I
Speaker 1: was introduced to VeggieTales because my oldest child is probably
Speaker 1: older than you, and my youngest child is four. So
Speaker 1: I've been doing this, you know, mama bear thing for
Speaker 1: over four decades now. And my my older kids loved
Speaker 1: veggie Tales, and so I loved Veggie Tails, and then
Speaker 1: Veggie Tails reached out to me, and I got to
Speaker 1: be a character in one of their movies. I have
Speaker 1: like I know, huh, I should have liked won an
Speaker 1: award for it, like you won your award for Hamilton's. Um.
Speaker 1: I had like four lines, but I did them well.
Speaker 1: I played a little sour grape anyway, introduce your daughter
Speaker 1: to veggie tails. Uh, we'll do it. You will walk
Speaker 1: around the house singing, oh where is my hairbrush? Oh?
Speaker 1: Where is my hairbrush? Oh? Where where? Or where? Where? Where? Where?
Speaker 1: A where is my hair brush? You don't need a
Speaker 1: hair brush, you don't have any hair When when I
Speaker 1: make my Veggie Tails cover album, I will dedicate it
Speaker 1: to you because you introduced me to veggie tail. Oh, Leslie,
Speaker 1: let me tell you. But speaking of music, better than
Speaker 1: AARs my hair brust, tell me about your Christmas album?
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Well, I you know, of all the
Speaker 1: things that I've done, I've done, I've been sort of busy,
Speaker 1: you know, since leaving Hamilton's. Have done a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: sort of busy, movies, albums, babies. It's sort of busy.
Speaker 1: But the thing that I hear about most often, right
Speaker 1: after Hamilton's, of course, is this Christmas album that I made.
Speaker 1: I made a Christmas album a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and I hear about it, certainly at the holidays all
Speaker 1: the time. But it's it's it's got me jobs. My
Speaker 1: Christmas album was was one of the things that Regina.
Speaker 1: Regina said, I heard that Christmas album and I was
Speaker 1: like that, Sam Cook. So so it being out in
Speaker 1: the space has done really wonderful things for for us
Speaker 1: and people have embraced it. So um COVID nineteen, like
Speaker 1: everybody else, caught us in the middle of something. You know,
Speaker 1: I was. I was on tour for I put out
Speaker 1: an original album, all original music called MR at the
Speaker 1: end of last year, and everybody told me, you can't
Speaker 1: just put out an album and expect people to find
Speaker 1: their way to it. You have to tour an album.
Speaker 1: You have to go around the country and kiss babies,
Speaker 1: shake hands. No no, no, no, no, Leslie, Leslie, Leslie.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is called a lila oh baby, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you for halfies and one night, bam bam, your
Speaker 1: work is done. Yeah, we had to we had to pivot,
Speaker 1: you know that the tour got canceled, and I you know,
Speaker 1: at first, I wasn't you know, I wasn't even concerned
Speaker 1: about that. I wanted to be home with my with
Speaker 1: my ladies and hold them close. And you know, we
Speaker 1: didn't know how close this virus was gonna get to home,
Speaker 1: how seriously was going to be So so anyway was home,
Speaker 1: you know, just on lockdown. For a few months and
Speaker 1: then up to three months into the thing, you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what can I do? What can I make? And just
Speaker 1: fast forwarding a little bit, trying to imagine this Christmas,
Speaker 1: this Christmas, what people might be in need of, what
Speaker 1: people how we could be of service. And we made
Speaker 1: this this second Christmas album in many ways, we just
Speaker 1: hope it feels and sounds like a gift. You know
Speaker 1: that that's our intention. So what's your favorite song that
Speaker 1: you did on this one? Well, I wrote two original
Speaker 1: songs on this one. I wouldn't have even dared to
Speaker 1: attempt that on the first one that it opens within
Speaker 1: a box as the kids call it. It's called snow Um,
Speaker 1: you know, for you to dance around the house while
Speaker 1: you're decorating the tree and putting your lights up. And
Speaker 1: then it closes with an original song called Heaven and Earth.
Speaker 1: That really kind of And I was in the delivery
Speaker 1: room for the birth of my daughter, and something I
Speaker 1: was thinking about in the delivery room. You know what,
Speaker 1: when you know, as you begin the craft of the
Speaker 1: father watching um, if you're lucky enough with you, you know,
Speaker 1: to to be in the deliver room from bern of
Speaker 1: a child where every man is Joseph in the delivery room.
Speaker 1: You know, every man has that wonder and that awe
Speaker 1: and terror and lation, you know, all that time as
Speaker 1: we watched women do the most miraculous thing that most
Speaker 1: of us will ever witness on this planet. Um, so
Speaker 1: Heaven and Earth is about just try to put you
Speaker 1: back in that delivery room and really back in that barn,
Speaker 1: you know. So think about this. When you were in
Speaker 1: the delivery room with you know, seeing your baby girl
Speaker 1: be born, there were doctors, nurses, midwives, dou Lah's technicians,
Speaker 1: oxygen tanks, all that at your disposal should problems arise.
Speaker 1: I often think about Joseph. It was just him, Mary,
Speaker 1: a few cows, some sheep. Yeah, and back then men
Speaker 1: weren't even allowed near the women when they were having
Speaker 1: anything to do with you know, the monthly cycle or
Speaker 1: anything like that. And here he's thrust into the role
Speaker 1: of delivering the almighty. Yeah, I mean, could you imagine
Speaker 1: he's a terrible god? What if I drop him? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: oh no, somebody? Is there anybody else out there that
Speaker 1: could come and give me a hand? That is hello, people,
Speaker 1: I mean, without the without the the support staff that
Speaker 1: I had you know, I think that there are similar
Speaker 1: things that I felt. You know also, you know much
Speaker 1: out not being the almighty, but but just yet a
Speaker 1: little life that that I believe comes from God, a
Speaker 1: little soul, little spirit. TI I'm charged with um And
Speaker 1: you're like, am I ready? Am I enough? Do I
Speaker 1: know enough? What if I dropped her? What if you
Speaker 1: know all those things? That is what you're thinking. And
Speaker 1: I mean my wife, man, Oh my god, the respect
Speaker 1: that I had had for her after seeing or do
Speaker 1: something like that. It's just yeah, there's no equivalent from men.
Speaker 1: There's there is no equivalent in this life that we
Speaker 1: go through that you know, which you guys have to
Speaker 1: face your death. You have to face your death to
Speaker 1: bring life into the world. It's it's astonishing, an astonishing paradox,
Speaker 1: and most of it, if most of us have given
Speaker 1: the chance, would do it again and again. I mean no,
Speaker 1: I was blessed to give birth to three and further
Speaker 1: blessed to adopt twelve and marry a man that had five,
Speaker 1: And if I could, I would still be birth and babies,
Speaker 1: because it's the greatest blessing in in my world, far
Speaker 1: above anything. Nothing even comes close to being the joy
Speaker 1: giver to my heart that my kids are nothing after
Speaker 1: that Hamilton's you know, my wife and I were not
Speaker 1: planning on having children, uh anytime soon, you know. But
Speaker 1: but after that, after that Hamilton thing and climbing that
Speaker 1: mountain and you know, wrapping my arms around a childhood
Speaker 1: dream and a Tony award and the Grammy award and stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, and and just just really that experience being
Speaker 1: so satisfying and satiating. It was like, what what mountain
Speaker 1: do we want to climb next? I mean, it was
Speaker 1: really the only the only next thing we could do
Speaker 1: because we knew we didn't want to just like continue
Speaker 1: after career aspirations. It's like, look, that was and my
Speaker 1: wife's got to experience it right alongside me, so you know,
Speaker 1: in many ways it was you know, it was my
Speaker 1: victory was as much her victory, you know. So we
Speaker 1: decided to have a kid next. And you're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: it's everything else pales in comparison. It's all wonderful. It
Speaker 1: is all wonderful, the accolades and the and the career stuff,
Speaker 1: but um, being a husband, being a dad is the
Speaker 1: most important job and my face her job on the planet,
Speaker 1: all right, We're going to have to figure out how
Speaker 1: to zoom the littles because I gotta I gotta meet
Speaker 1: this little person in yours. So tell me about One
Speaker 1: Night in Miami opening Christmas Day. Yeah, quite a story,
Speaker 1: you guys decided to tell. Yeah, One Night in Miami,
Speaker 1: directed by Oscar winner, Emmy winner Regina King's having quite
Speaker 1: renaissance herself. Um, but she found this play, you know,
Speaker 1: after the Oscar. Hollywood came to her and they said,
Speaker 1: you know what, that's what happens after you win Oscar.
Speaker 1: So what do you want to do next? What movie
Speaker 1: can we find for you? She said, I really want
Speaker 1: to direct something and I said what do you want
Speaker 1: to direct? And she said, well, I think I really
Speaker 1: want to direct a black love story and I love that.
Speaker 1: That's the start of this. This movie, which she ended
Speaker 1: up finding, was a story about friendship and brotherhood. Um
Speaker 1: so that was her love story. But it's based on
Speaker 1: a true night. Cash is Clay is going to fight
Speaker 1: than the heavyweight champion uh Sunny listing for the belt.
Speaker 1: Nobody expects Cashes to win this fight, so there's no
Speaker 1: victory party planned in Miami for Cashes. Nobody expected Cashes
Speaker 1: to win except for except for cashes, right, I love that.
Speaker 1: I would much rather the whole world be against me
Speaker 1: when I go into a ring, when I go into battle,
Speaker 1: I don't want anybody to plan a victory party because
Speaker 1: I want to kick butt and then say told you so,
Speaker 1: that's what he does, that's what he did, that's what
Speaker 1: he did. And he did, and he spent the evening
Speaker 1: that night his victory party, was hanging out in a
Speaker 1: hotel room with three of his closest friends who just
Speaker 1: happened to be Jim Brown, Malcolm X, and Sam Cook.
Speaker 1: And we know the night happened, that the men all
Speaker 1: spoke about the night. Um, but we know we also
Speaker 1: have confirmation of the night because the FBI was the
Speaker 1: CIA was following Malcolm and keeping copious notes on everything
Speaker 1: you did, and so uh their notes that are public
Speaker 1: record now about about that evening, and nobody knows what
Speaker 1: went on in the room where it happened, as it were,
Speaker 1: Nobody knows what they talked about that night. But um,
Speaker 1: it became uh, this legendary night only in hindsight because
Speaker 1: within a year, Delilah, both Malcolm and Sam would be
Speaker 1: gone so suddenly and so violently so you imagine you
Speaker 1: have a night like that. You know, when I tell people,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, you imagine you have a you know,
Speaker 1: you hang out the three of your pals and you know,
Speaker 1: you guys have a night on the town, you know,
Speaker 1: and then God forbid, you know, you if you've lost
Speaker 1: them with you know everything, every interaction you you pour over,
Speaker 1: those interactions, you pour over the last time you talk
Speaker 1: to them, the last meaningful conversation you had in hindsight,
Speaker 1: because you're like, you know, that's all you had left.
Speaker 1: And so that's what this film supposes, what they might
Speaker 1: have talked about that night, all night long. And it's
Speaker 1: a very special movie getting a lot of attention, and
Speaker 1: I'm very very proud of it. And you're Sam Cook.
Speaker 1: I'm Sam Cook in this film. Uh cut me some slack,
Speaker 1: because I mean it's Sam Cooke, the greatest, one of
Speaker 1: the greatest voices we were ever gifted. And what a
Speaker 1: soul you know, and what and what an icono class
Speaker 1: I mean, he was just He's the blueprint. So um yeah,
Speaker 1: I play Sam Cook. I do. I attempt to sing
Speaker 1: the Sam Cook music in the film, and the hits
Speaker 1: are all in there, so it comes and select theaters
Speaker 1: of course, if you're willing to go to a movie
Speaker 1: theater or drive in theater. I said, I started the
Speaker 1: drive in the top of this week and it was
Speaker 1: I've never been to a drive in. It was really
Speaker 1: fun time we had. And it comes to Amazon Prime
Speaker 1: January fifteen, the top of the next year, Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King Junior Weekend. It come to your living room, so
Speaker 1: see it on Christmas, or wait a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: and see it in your living room. And it's called
Speaker 1: One Night in Miami. Now before you go, one more
Speaker 1: thing we have to talk about. Because of all the
Speaker 1: projects you're involved with right now, this is the one
Speaker 1: that's closest to my heart because six of my kids
Speaker 1: came to me um. I adopted them out of the
Speaker 1: foster care system. And you are hosting something CBS is
Speaker 1: a home for the holidays. Yeah, and I hope the
Speaker 1: entire world pays attention. Yeah, where um Hamilton's is this
Speaker 1: wonderful thing because it set a big old table for us.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people love this show and
Speaker 1: there and that the love for the material gets transferred
Speaker 1: onto those of us that were lucky enough to be
Speaker 1: in the original cast, and so we're able to bring
Speaker 1: attention to causes and charities, charity work and stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: because these all these people, they need to continue to
Speaker 1: do this necessary work. Even in the middle of, you know,
Speaker 1: of a shutdown. Not only are there still kids in
Speaker 1: foster care, but the number of children, uh that now
Speaker 1: needs services because the shutdown has caused such a jump
Speaker 1: in addictions, in poverty, in suicide rates, and all the
Speaker 1: things that lead kids to be in the system in
Speaker 1: the first place. It's kind of exponentially now exponentially. So
Speaker 1: I love this, this this thing that you're you're doing
Speaker 1: the show to bring awareness two kids in foster care.
Speaker 1: My pleasure. And if you ever, you know, if you
Speaker 1: ever wanna, you know, a private, little living room concert,
Speaker 1: you let me know. Because it's you. It sounds like
Speaker 1: you've got your own thing going over there. You are,
Speaker 1: you know, changing the world over there, all by yourself.
Speaker 1: So oh trust me, it's not all by myself. I
Speaker 1: have many hands that have to help me. But with
Speaker 1: everything shut down in our country and all the stress
Speaker 1: going on, it seems like you are moving forward and
Speaker 1: moving forward with joy and with passion and with love.
Speaker 1: And I love that we know how contagious this virus is.
Speaker 1: We know how easy it is to spread um, a
Speaker 1: literal virus. I think we're seeing how easy it is
Speaker 1: to spread hatred and derision around the country. That's also easy.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, if you put your mind
Speaker 1: to it, you can spread joy to you can spread love,
Speaker 1: you can spread kindness. And I want to That's what
Speaker 1: I want to be about. In addition to wearing my
Speaker 1: mask and keeping the people that I hold most dear
Speaker 1: safe as much as I can, I'm trying to spread
Speaker 1: some positivity out here. Well. I believe that that the
Speaker 1: love and joy and happiness and faith will always always
Speaker 1: always win, will always win because because light cast out darkness.
Speaker 1: When you open a door less lee at night and
Speaker 1: it's pitch black outside, the night doesn't sneak into your house.
Speaker 1: The light and the warmth of your house goes out
Speaker 1: into the night. And that's what you're doing. You're that light.
Speaker 1: You're a light on a hill. You're sharing that love
Speaker 1: and that joy in a world that's kind of dark
Speaker 1: right now and kind of scary. Thank you, Delilah, you too,
Speaker 1: by the way, Well, Merry Christmas, my friend, God bless you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you for the time my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Leslie Odom Jr. Is so handsome, so talented,
Speaker 1: what a voice. I admire him so very much for
Speaker 1: putting his heart and soul into the very meaningful roles.
Speaker 1: All the roles that he takes on, he puts his
Speaker 1: heart and soul into not just for the entertainment element,
Speaker 1: but because he has the ability to make you feel
Speaker 1: and make you think and touches you in deep emotional ways.
Speaker 1: Truly a great performer and such a wonderful man. His
Speaker 1: work is inspiring and provides us with an important lesson.
Speaker 1: When what we've become accustomed to as normal shifted in
Speaker 1: seismic waves, tilting our view of reality on its axis,
Speaker 1: we have to adapt. So many of my guests in
Speaker 1: the last several months have provided the same inspiration. John
Speaker 1: bon Jovi with his message of do what you can
Speaker 1: for King and Country and their drummer boy drive in
Speaker 1: concerts and their deep and abiding faith life. This year
Speaker 1: has changed for all of us. It has changed for
Speaker 1: all of us, but I believe it is a wonderful
Speaker 1: time to be alive. There are so many beautiful things
Speaker 1: in the world to enjoy, and celebrate so many miracles
Speaker 1: this Christmas season. There is no better time to remember
Speaker 1: and contemplate the fact that for God so loved the
Speaker 1: world that he gave his only begotten son. What can
Speaker 1: you give? What can you give the world? As we
Speaker 1: wrap up twenty and head into a new year, please
Speaker 1: remember that you are important, You are needed, You are
Speaker 1: needed your life as a gift. If you're not living
Speaker 1: up to your potential. Whatever you need to do, do it,
Speaker 1: do it today, do it tonight, and then be in
Speaker 1: service to others and love someone. Merry Christmas, my friends.
Speaker 1: I wish you a beautiful holiday and a very blessed
Speaker 1: new year. Deve