Speaker 1: Yo, I talk a lot. I know sometimes it could
Speaker 1: be hard to follow me. But if you don't listen
Speaker 1: to anything else, I say, listen to this. These people
Speaker 1: don't give a fuck about you. We didn't talked like
Speaker 1: your dad has passed away. I done took you outside
Speaker 1: the office, We've talked about it, We've gone through all
Speaker 1: of this. You wouldn't do this to me. Not only
Speaker 1: will they, they're going to Yeah, like they're going to
Speaker 1: do it. It's like they're going to do you. You
Speaker 1: You're gonna get done. You will be done like something
Speaker 1: like if you are, if you are making the track
Speaker 1: towards being somebody important or influential, somebody is going to
Speaker 1: do you. There's no magic or sinister story to a divorce.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it don't work out. It just doesn't work out.
Speaker 1: But you want to believe certain people will never be
Speaker 1: happy because their lifestyles are antithetical to happiness in a relationship.
Speaker 1: So you want to you want to believe like like you,
Speaker 1: like you, you you. You want to believe that right.
Speaker 1: You want to believe that TAMS gives you that. In
Speaker 1: order to do that, TMZ has to treat those people
Speaker 1: like they're not people. They have to treat them as
Speaker 1: if their concepts celebrity is not a person.
Speaker 2: That's why I guess comes off a little bit invasive
Speaker 2: and ruthless.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, no, because they're.
Speaker 2: They're not treating they're they're treating them kind of like.
Speaker 1: Well, you have to write like even even the TMS
Speaker 1: tour was a celebrity safari, Like what's on a safari?
Speaker 2: Yeah, animals animals, right.
Speaker 1: And so and so like when when you like the
Speaker 1: tours celebrities to fight its animals, right, and so you
Speaker 1: do that, right and what you what you say is okay, Well,
Speaker 1: in order to be a celebrity, the game is pr
Speaker 1: at its base, right, So this is what you sign
Speaker 1: up for kind of right, because like there are certain
Speaker 1: things that you don't sign up for. I'll never talk
Speaker 1: I'll never I'll never forget this. There was the sister
Speaker 1: of a celebrity that had that had had something taught
Speaker 1: done to them. I'll never forget. I'm not gonna talk
Speaker 1: about who I had the conversation with. I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't do that. And they did the story and
Speaker 1: this dude went on fucking and let us fucking happ
Speaker 1: and I was like, yo, we had to take it
Speaker 1: down and apologize and do all that stuff like yo,
Speaker 1: like there's a limit to this. And that's not me
Speaker 1: making a moral judgment on the team team. I'm just
Speaker 1: telling you the way things go. So like when you
Speaker 1: know all of that, when you have an idea of
Speaker 1: what drives that, Like obviously they're moral. There are things
Speaker 1: that you have to not care about to work there.
Speaker 1: But most of the people there are good people. They're
Speaker 1: just desensitized to whatever was going on there because that's
Speaker 1: where they work, like like that, like that's what they do.
Speaker 1: I'm there. It's the same thing. Things are coming in
Speaker 1: at a certain point you go, god damn, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's there will be little small things. This is
Speaker 1: a football player that had this video come out of
Speaker 1: some altercation. It was in and it said savage beating
Speaker 1: by this and I was just looking at the hellline.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's I don't think we should go savage
Speaker 1: beating there, Like I think savage is like a that's
Speaker 1: like an interesting way where there's just little small things.
Speaker 1: The mayor of DC died Marion Barry crack maryor Marion
Speaker 1: Barry dies like he died and like by the way,
Speaker 1: the people in DC are gonna freak the funk out
Speaker 1: because I don't know if you guys know, but Marion
Speaker 1: Barry was with Martin Luther King Junior. Like where I'm from,
Speaker 1: Like I deal with a group of people, the community,
Speaker 1: people that are always categorized by the worst moment that
Speaker 1: they have. And I don't feel comfortable with categorizing a
Speaker 1: man that means so much to his city by the worst,
Speaker 1: most scandalous thing he ever had. You can't talk about
Speaker 1: his life without talking about that, Yeah, but maybe in
Speaker 1: the headline you don't do that. So it so all
Speaker 1: of those things start to start to happen. And so
Speaker 1: for me, what the place represents it's not even so
Speaker 1: much a bunch of not even so much a bunch
Speaker 1: of moral people that are running around trying to get
Speaker 1: the dirn on celebrities. It represents our relationship to celebrity
Speaker 1: and our relationship to ourselves, because there's no fucking reason
Speaker 1: whatsoever why we should spend so much time talking about
Speaker 1: what happens in the lives of famous people. It just
Speaker 1: really like, at its core, it just doesn't And even
Speaker 1: to this day on the podcast, I still do it.
Speaker 1: And the reason why I still do it. I don't
Speaker 1: get the stories, but you try to extrapolate larger conversations
Speaker 1: out of these things and talk about them with notable people.
Speaker 1: But really it's just the need to talk about things
Speaker 1: that people care about, and for whatever reason, people care
Speaker 1: about celebrity and fame.
Speaker 2: Okay, can that makes sense? So going back to your story, Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you're at TMZ for nine years, you said, and
Speaker 2: then what happens after that?
Speaker 1: After that?
Speaker 2: Wait, what happened with your ending in TMZ?
Speaker 1: I got fired for an altercation inside the office with
Speaker 1: a white boy.
Speaker 2: You say altercation? No hands?
Speaker 1: They say I use hands?
Speaker 2: They say you used hands? Did you use hands?
Speaker 1: Yeah, not in any real way.
Speaker 2: I mean not in a real way. What did you
Speaker 2: do like that?
Speaker 1: Or like, no, I'm not gonna smack nobody. See, I
Speaker 1: would never This is the funny thing that would never happen, Right.
Speaker 2: That would never happen. You say, a white boy, I'm like,
Speaker 2: maybe you went light on him, you smacked him.
Speaker 1: This guy was my guy, still is my guy. He's
Speaker 1: a Republican. Whatever, tell you what happened. I'm an emotional person.
Speaker 2: I can kind of see that.
Speaker 1: Very true. Uh, They they wanted me to talk about.
Speaker 1: There's only one thing I don't want to talk about,
Speaker 1: Hurricane Katrina. I just don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Like even saying the name Hurricane Katrina, like right now
Speaker 1: it makes me want to cry. I just don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about it. I want think about, I want
Speaker 1: talk about I don' want talk about it. I don't
Speaker 1: very tough, very hard. And there was this story that
Speaker 1: had gone on in the newsroom earlier where George Bush
Speaker 1: was being cool with like Ellen Degeneress, thats some football games,
Speaker 1: and I was like, it doesn't matter what you guys
Speaker 1: say about George Bush. I don't give a fuck that
Speaker 1: he paints. I don't give a fuck that show Obama
Speaker 1: likee George Bush, fuck George Bush, forever like it. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. I don't give a fuck. Who's the who's
Speaker 1: worse fucking forever Wheel was in the water. He didn't
Speaker 1: care that. The way it goes like, hey, we're gonna
Speaker 1: bring this back and you're so passionate about it, and
Speaker 1: the thing it's like, guys, I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about it. Oh, I told you. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about guys, and I want to talk about Like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, please, Pa, I'm like please, I
Speaker 1: don't want to. I want to discuss it. I'm here,
Speaker 1: I do everything. I've been the funny nigga for a
Speaker 1: long time. I've been the I do. I'm the Swiss
Speaker 1: Army Knife of niggas. I'm the funny nigga. I'm the
Speaker 1: basketball nigga. I'm the who look at the ass nigga.
Speaker 1: I'm like all that I've been. This just I'm saying,
Speaker 1: don't don't. I don't want to talk about it. You
Speaker 1: gotta do it, fam we need you. Okay. So I
Speaker 1: get on there and I'm talking my whole thing, and
Speaker 1: this guy up there hosting the show, he's cutting me off,
Speaker 1: and he's speaking to me in a way that I
Speaker 1: don't like. Anytime you speak to me in a way
Speaker 1: that I don't like, we have a conversation about it, Okay,
Speaker 1: is it? So this is generally how this happened. I
Speaker 1: challenge anyone to watch the video. Guys up there, he's
Speaker 1: sitting down, he's doing the show. I know him now.
Speaker 1: I know him like we're friends, and we're friends. Now
Speaker 1: he's up there and he's doing the show. He's done
Speaker 1: this already and I don't want to yell at him
Speaker 1: across the newsroom make a big scene. So I go
Speaker 1: up to him while he's sitting down, and I put
Speaker 1: my hands on his shoulders, and you can see me
Speaker 1: on the video. I'm whispering into his ear. I'm whispering
Speaker 1: into his ear.
Speaker 2: Does he turn around and do the whole big scene?
Speaker 1: Nah? He turns around, and he moves his hand from
Speaker 1: off my shoulder and I'll move it and then and
Speaker 1: then I whisper into his ear, and I say, and
Speaker 1: you can see me leaving. I pat him on the side.
Speaker 1: You can see me leaving, and I do like this,
Speaker 1: and I walk back. The last thing I said to
Speaker 1: him was not something that you should say to somebody
Speaker 1: in the office. He stood up and I was like, whatever,
Speaker 1: I don't even want to The last thing that I
Speaker 1: said is something. And so when I said that, Charles said,
Speaker 1: Van go home.
Speaker 2: What did you say?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: So like so, the I mean, the last thing was
Speaker 1: a threat. It was no, no, no, that wasn't a.
Speaker 2: It was a lights out.
Speaker 1: The last thing was a threat. It wasn't a threat
Speaker 1: as in I'm gonna do something to you. It was
Speaker 1: a threat as in, these are my limits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't cross that line again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and and that's probably too far off
Speaker 1: for Charles. Charles Charles goes Van go home. That's the
Speaker 1: last time I was ever in TMZ. It was funny
Speaker 1: because when they called me, I knew I was gonna
Speaker 1: have to it was gonna have to bench be for
Speaker 1: a little while, right, uh for that. Yeah, so listen,
Speaker 1: it's funny. So I'm on the thing and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm one of the phone with the HR people and
Speaker 1: they go, yeah, did you choke him? And I went
Speaker 1: wait what And they were like, yeah, did you put
Speaker 1: your hands around his neck? And I was like oh.
Speaker 1: And I was like, guys, this is Van. Hey, it's me.
Speaker 1: Circus Bear like, hey, it's Vans. This is Van. Think
Speaker 1: about what you're asking me. Think about if you're asking
Speaker 1: me whether or not I choked Mike in in front
Speaker 1: of the whole newsroom.
Speaker 3: It's me.
Speaker 1: I know you guys, it's children. I'd be around y'all
Speaker 1: like it's Van, Hey, it's me. Now come back the
Speaker 1: whole thing. I was like, oh, they about to do me,
Speaker 1: and they did. And it was like the funny thing
Speaker 1: about it was so all of these conversations. It's like
Speaker 1: stuff happens. I end up being terminated. Karen, my manager,
Speaker 1: like automatically has stuff. So we're taking all kinds of
Speaker 1: means was doing all kinds of stuff. Nobody guys is
Speaker 1: off me. We're doing the same stuff because literally my
Speaker 1: contract was up at TMZ in about four more weeks
Speaker 1: and I had already told them I wasn't resigning. So
Speaker 1: if they thought they would have had me for a
Speaker 1: longer term, there's no way they would have fired me.
Speaker 1: But it's like whatever, this is a way to try
Speaker 1: maybe say some money, get off from under Its cool.
Speaker 1: So my it starts to get around the office and
Speaker 1: I'm not coming back. So my coworkers throw me a
Speaker 1: going away party, including the guy that I supposedly chose,
Speaker 1: who comes to the going away party. And after that
Speaker 1: that was on a Saturday. Pictures go up on Instagram
Speaker 1: on Monday. Paid six colls me and says, what we
Speaker 1: heard that you got fired. We heard that you got fired.
Speaker 1: We heard it there was some kind of office altercation.
Speaker 1: We heard there was all of this stuff, and I'm
Speaker 1: like fuck. Now, I'm like god, damn. Now I'm the
Speaker 1: six foot fourth scary nigga, are you six four? Don't play?
Speaker 1: And so and so and so. Now I'm like and so.
Speaker 1: Now I'm like the six foot I'm not like er
Speaker 1: er er. And they put up an article and the
Speaker 1: article was like super it went soft on me. Everybody
Speaker 1: loves fan and all of this stuff like that. TMZ
Speaker 1: got their asses kicked. Everybody was coming at them, like
Speaker 1: everybody and so then the next day the office struck back.
Speaker 1: And this is the one of the most important moments
Speaker 1: of my career. Yo, I talk a lot. I know
Speaker 1: sometimes it could be hard to follow me. But if
Speaker 1: you don't listen to anything else, I say, listen to this.
Speaker 1: These people don't give a fuck about you. They don't
Speaker 1: tell you what we do as black people. Sometimes what
Speaker 1: we do is like the record label becomes a crew
Speaker 1: and a family, the production group becomes a crew and
Speaker 1: a family. We gotta sign, we got a logo, we
Speaker 1: got all of this stuff and boom boom boom, boom boom,
Speaker 1: and we cool. I know your kids, I know I
Speaker 1: know all of these people around you. We didn't talked
Speaker 1: like your dad has passed away. I took you outside
Speaker 1: the office. We've talked about it. We've gone through all
Speaker 1: of this, you wouldn't do this to me. Not only
Speaker 1: will they they're going to Yeah, like they're going to
Speaker 1: do it. It's like they're going to do you. You're
Speaker 1: gonna get done. You will be done like something like
Speaker 1: if you are if you are making the track towards
Speaker 1: being somebody important or influential, somebody is going to do you.
Speaker 1: You will be done. So the question is for you
Speaker 1: is how are you gonna respond to it? As much naive.
Speaker 1: This is coming from a man at that time who
Speaker 1: was thirty nine years old. I didn't think they would
Speaker 1: do me that way. And the reason why I didn't
Speaker 1: think they would do me that way, it's not because
Speaker 1: it's because Yo, I know these people. It's to the
Speaker 1: point to me to where if if I pick up
Speaker 1: your baby and hold your back I'm from ban Rouge.
Speaker 1: If I pick up your baby, if I don't fuck
Speaker 1: with you and get that little nigga away from me,
Speaker 1: But like if if I pick up your baby and
Speaker 1: hold your baby and all your wife and I've been
Speaker 1: to your crib and all of that stuff, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: that there's gonna be a point where where somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: want to make me look in a certain way and
Speaker 1: somebody's gonna go, we can't do that to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but does it also make you wonder like kind
Speaker 2: of going back to the Jesus days, like the whole Judas,
Speaker 2: Like which one like with that piece of advice or
Speaker 2: that's that statement? Do you think that people should be
Speaker 2: also double looking over like which one in their crew
Speaker 2: is gonna be the one that kisses them on the cheek?
Speaker 1: No? No, do you know what we forget about Judas?
Speaker 1: What that he got paid? The money is the.
Speaker 2: Judas I understand.
Speaker 1: So so hear me out.
Speaker 2: So the root is always gonna be in the industry
Speaker 2: in of itself.
Speaker 1: The root the what pulls you apart, what brings you
Speaker 1: together with these people is the commerce, and what pulls
Speaker 1: you apart is the commerce. Yeah. Sure they liked me,
Speaker 1: but I was good for business. Yeah you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Yeah, they liked me. They definitely liked me.
Speaker 1: But I was funny, and I was smart, and I
Speaker 1: was devastatingly handsome, and I was and I was all
Speaker 1: of those they like. They they liked me, but I
Speaker 1: was good for business and a lot of the things
Speaker 1: that I got away with there, I wouldn't have gotten
Speaker 1: away with if I wasn't good for business. And at
Speaker 1: that point I was bad for business.
Speaker 2: So but they threw the mud back on.
Speaker 1: You, right, So I was bad for business. And the
Speaker 1: moment that I became bad for business, we talked about
Speaker 1: it before. Was not a person anymore. It's like a thing.
Speaker 1: So Judas, Yeah, he did what he did. They paid
Speaker 1: him thirty pieces of silver. The thing is going to
Speaker 1: get at you. Just be prepared for the thing, the
Speaker 1: thing when you're no longer, when they no longer have
Speaker 1: to protect you. First of all, anybody who doesn't have
Speaker 1: to protect you won't. That's the first thing. And secondly,
Speaker 1: if you're a threat to the money.
Speaker 3: Your toast.
Speaker 1: So at that point everybody is making them look bad.
Speaker 1: They're like they don't want to be embarrassed. People are
Speaker 1: asking if TMZ is racist. People are starting to say
Speaker 1: the TMZ fire Van because vancd to Kanye West. It's
Speaker 1: all of this stuff. If somebody would have got on
Speaker 1: the phone with me, I swear to God, if somebody
Speaker 1: would have called me and be like, Van, we're taking
Speaker 1: the beating. Is there something you can say, I'd have
Speaker 1: done them a solid because that's out of done them
Speaker 1: a solid because I had no fucking problem with being
Speaker 1: where I was. It was aw cool. I had everything
Speaker 1: set up.
Speaker 2: So, oh that's what that was gonna be. My next question.
Speaker 2: So what was your mindset at when all of this
Speaker 2: was going on?
Speaker 1: I started having heart problems?
Speaker 2: Well, I thought you just said that. What do you
Speaker 2: mean while were you having heart problems?
Speaker 1: It was stressed out? Okay, sorry. Like when I say
Speaker 1: I started having heart problems, it's like there's something called
Speaker 1: preventricular contractions. It's like a skipping of the beat. Like
Speaker 1: I was so stressed that I was like to play
Speaker 1: basketball very active. I was so stressed that my heart
Speaker 1: started missing timing. It was boomoom boom, boom boom.
Speaker 2: When you were stressed over what just the whole transition
Speaker 2: and where your next road was going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole deal, think about it, right, like the
Speaker 1: whole deal. But here's the deal though. I say all
Speaker 1: this to say this. People look for God in like
Speaker 1: the sky. Sometimes God is on the ground too, He's
Speaker 1: like right where you're walking. I had to go through that,
Speaker 1: you know why why? Because I had to put people
Speaker 1: through that. I had to go through that because I
Speaker 1: had written and hit publish on headlines that had made
Speaker 1: people feel that way. I had got on TV and
Speaker 1: talked about people in a way that made them go, shit,
Speaker 1: these people don't know me. I had been a part
Speaker 1: of stories that portrayed people in a light that's not
Speaker 1: quite accurate to who they actually are without me really
Speaker 1: knowing them. I had been a part of that.
Speaker 2: So but you had You've been a part of it
Speaker 2: without the relationship. It's different. Obviously, if you have the
Speaker 2: relationship and you're pushing the published button.
Speaker 1: That all feels the same. Because like for me seeing
Speaker 1: me on page six and seeing me going through all
Speaker 1: of this stuff and me going, hey, guys, you guys
Speaker 1: know me. This is not the thing. This is not
Speaker 1: the deal. Seeing something out of context, played up all
Speaker 1: the little micro feelings about black man, or right there,
Speaker 1: which is a maritime before Van snapped. It's a maritime
Speaker 1: before Van hurt somebody. This was a maritime before he
Speaker 1: showed us who he really is. Remember, when a white
Speaker 1: person does something wrong, it's somebody who did something wrong.
Speaker 1: When a black person does something wrong, they're showing us
Speaker 1: who they really are the whole time. So it's so
Speaker 1: all of this stuff, it's like I went through that,
Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, cool, no more of that
Speaker 1: for me. I have to feel that, like I'm not
Speaker 1: one of those persons. I always get caught when I
Speaker 1: do something wrong. I always it always comes back to me.
Speaker 1: He don't want me to escape without feeling it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it always comes back to me. And I could
Speaker 1: not leave there having done the Kanye thing and looked
Speaker 1: like some kind of big deal or whatever. I could
Speaker 1: not have left there without being on the other side
Speaker 1: of a headline. And so that's the way it went.
Speaker 1: Take the lesson, move on, continue to do dope shit,
Speaker 1: do as much as you can, but like it. And also,
Speaker 1: you know, I had been to Grilled Cheese Land already.
Speaker 1: If I had to go back there again, I could.
Speaker 2: Now that you're older, do you It's I've been to
Speaker 2: the broke land. But I promise you I'm terrified of
Speaker 2: going back. But I meet so many people on this
Speaker 2: show that'll be like, I'll fault bankruptcy. I'll go back again.
Speaker 2: I'm not worried about it. You're not at that phase
Speaker 2: where you really genuinely don't want to go back.
Speaker 1: To me, I can't go back now. I could if
Speaker 1: I had to go back, it would happen, right, But
Speaker 1: I can't go back now.
Speaker 2: Why do you see that we lost dad?
Speaker 1: So we lost dad in twenty twenty one, and it
Speaker 1: just changed, like it changed everything, like when we lost them,
Speaker 1: when we lost the old man. It's like I remember
Speaker 1: when you get the news. I go to bat Rouge
Speaker 1: and right away people start asking me stuff and it
Speaker 1: really didn't matter. I'm not used to people asking me
Speaker 1: stuff like in a family way, and then my decision
Speaker 1: being what they do and shout out to build man,
Speaker 1: like you know, Bill goes So, I a guy I
Speaker 1: work with at the Ringer. Bill like hit Bill. I'm
Speaker 1: like Bill goes Hey. It's like, man, He's like he's
Speaker 1: honest with me right there. He's like, Man, I'm telling
Speaker 1: you right now, when you go down there, now, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be different, Like you're going to have to be
Speaker 1: the guy. And I'm not saying that I am the
Speaker 1: guy in my family. I'm just saying that, Like.
Speaker 2: You're also the youngest, aren't you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm the youngest, but I'm also I mean, in
Speaker 1: terms of this immediate family, I want to parse apart
Speaker 1: all my family dynamics, but like they rely on me,
Speaker 1: so it it so because of that now it's not
Speaker 1: even now. The fucking roof gotta get changed. Like stuff
Speaker 1: gotta happen. And even if my dad was around and
Speaker 1: he couldn't do it, he had a way to get
Speaker 1: it done. He was a useful, resourceful, responsible old school man.
Speaker 2: You say that, but going back to when you're mom left,
Speaker 2: you were saying that, like if the stove broke, you guys.
Speaker 1: Were like, w he wasn't that way with him, but
Speaker 1: he would be that way with you. So if it's him,
Speaker 1: he man. When I went to his crib, like after
Speaker 1: he had passed away, like I see y'all got the
Speaker 1: wires and all this stuff, and you know, it's a
Speaker 1: production house. That's how it goes. So I go to
Speaker 1: this nigga shit and I'm in there and it's like
Speaker 1: it's weird, Like death is so weird because you're gone,
Speaker 1: but everything else around you is like the same. So
Speaker 1: I go into his house and the outdoor channel like
Speaker 1: he's a hunting fish, So the outdoor channel is still on,
Speaker 1: like it's still on, like he's He's the only thing
Speaker 1: that's not alive.
Speaker 2: In the room is him.
Speaker 1: Like the outdoor channel is still on in the middle
Speaker 1: of the thing. His saddle is on the saddle horse
Speaker 1: that you put on in the room next to him.
Speaker 1: All of his hunting stuff is there. He has stuff
Speaker 1: laid out for the next time he's going. His gun
Speaker 1: is taking apart. He was oiling it the night before
Speaker 1: he passed away, so like he wasn't expecting to die, right,
Speaker 1: And so I'm going there and I'll look and I
Speaker 1: see that he's running power out of one of the
Speaker 1: rooms into his bath room. I'm like this, nigga is
Speaker 1: good for nigger rigg and some shit. Why don't you
Speaker 1: just do whatever you gotta do to have the people
Speaker 1: come out there and have the power. I see if
Speaker 1: it would have been me doing that, If it had
Speaker 1: been me doing that, he say, boy, fix that. He's
Speaker 1: just used to dealing with a little bit less and
Speaker 1: then kind of making sure that you don't. So for
Speaker 1: him to be like gone and for people to know
Speaker 1: that they can't just because sometimes he didn't have it
Speaker 1: to give to you. He just had a strategy for you.
Speaker 1: And that's the craziest thing. When you need when you
Speaker 1: need one hundred and fifty dollars for somebody and they
Speaker 1: ain't got nothing but advice. You know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: that's like that's the you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: that's that's sometimes he didn't have it, but like since then,
Speaker 1: like I could go back to grilled cheese. I can
Speaker 1: get used to anything, but we can't go back to grilly. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it that we can't.
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 1: It's like niggas. And that's funny because and they know
Speaker 1: that because they don't even ask for the same amount
Speaker 1: of money before. Like if you if you got a
Speaker 1: thousand bucks in the bank account, people go, yo, man,
Speaker 1: let me hold, let me hold, let me hold a
Speaker 1: hundred bucks, bro, whole hundred dollars. Man need that. But
Speaker 1: if you don't, these numbers get crazy. What you mean,
Speaker 1: Oh bruh, the numbers get crazy. It's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: need four thousand dollars. What the fuck you need for?
Speaker 1: You ain't got a four thousand dollars life?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like what what?
Speaker 1: What the fuck you need four thousand dollars for?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 1: I mean I need four thousand dollars? All right, Cool?
Speaker 1: You need four thousand what like what like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like you know, you know, the whole thing and I'm
Speaker 1: not like you. Hear other people talking about this and
Speaker 1: they are actually really rich I'm doing okay, yeah, and they.
Speaker 2: They hitting you for real. So when you come back
Speaker 2: to you give them what your dad gives you.
Speaker 1: Nat how to get this for now, I gotta help out,
Speaker 1: like I gotta help out as much as I can.
Speaker 1: But but see this is the way I help out.
Speaker 1: I make you earn it. And listening to.
Speaker 2: Me, oh god, I love it, Oh my god, one
Speaker 2: of those I.
Speaker 1: Make you earn it, and sure y gotta do it,
Speaker 1: gotta do it, gotta do it. I make you earn Hey, now, look,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna send this to you. We gotta talk about
Speaker 1: how you live it. But we're doing it.
Speaker 2: That's messed up, man.
Speaker 1: I'm not a fucking atm hilarious. So we at least
Speaker 1: got to have a conversation about how we could be better.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Now, I got rules of the game. If it's mom is,
Speaker 2: just give me the bill direct.
Speaker 1: We all know that all of this doesn't it doesn't.
Speaker 1: This is not a mother grandmother thing. Mother and grandmother
Speaker 1: don't they don't even ask, they don't, they don't even
Speaker 1: ask like they really don't ask like they like it's
Speaker 1: like you'll come to their house, come to my mother
Speaker 1: in my grandmother's house, and they really do in the
Speaker 1: old small TV on top of the big Curtis Mathew.
Speaker 1: I'm like, nah, man, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta
Speaker 1: go get this whole situation so they don't even ask.
Speaker 1: Obviously with your mom is not that big of a.
Speaker 2: Deal, oh of mine. I'm just like, I have to
Speaker 2: pay direct because it's never gonna get to whoever you owe.
Speaker 1: They want your mom not gonna pay.
Speaker 2: The bill if I give my If my mom has
Speaker 2: a thousand dollars light bow, hence her one thousand dollars
Speaker 2: light bow, you see where we're going, She'll be like,
Speaker 2: you give her the money. She'll be like, I know
Speaker 2: that they'll keep the lights on. If I just give
Speaker 2: them ten, you'd be like, just the bill. So I
Speaker 2: just be like, send me the bill direct.
Speaker 1: I see. This is why I love talking to people,
Speaker 1: and that's how I know you Black. That's why I
Speaker 1: love talking to people because I remember back in the day,
Speaker 1: I don't even know you could do that.
Speaker 2: I never knew you could do that until I discovered
Speaker 2: my mom can rack a bill's extremely high.
Speaker 1: My mom time, my mom told me to pay the
Speaker 1: light bill. She was like telling me come out there
Speaker 1: and you'll drop them off seventy dollars. I'm like, drop
Speaker 1: him off seventy dollars. She Saydeah, tell me you drop
Speaker 1: them off seventy dollars. I was like, you can drop
Speaker 1: them off seventy dollars and she was like, yeah, they
Speaker 1: want you to pay something. You drop them off the
Speaker 1: seventy dollars and then you come back a little bit later.
Speaker 1: I remember one. It's just so many stories. Mom sprayed
Speaker 1: mace at the feet of the light guy, the light
Speaker 1: build god, so he could come cut the lights off.
Speaker 1: She made some she makes the light build God no
Speaker 1: way swear light buil God. Mased them and then told
Speaker 1: him that the house was covered in the blood of
Speaker 1: Jesus and that if he came in there, his blessing
Speaker 1: was gonna be cut because she was trying to turn
Speaker 1: the lights off on her kids. Maceed them and then
Speaker 1: it was like, I'm letting you know, this house is
Speaker 1: covered by the blood of Jesus. She's coming here. This
Speaker 1: is crazy. She had she had force, she had the Bible,
Speaker 1: she had all kinds of stuff anyway, So all of
Speaker 1: that stuff now is just like now you're blessed. You're
Speaker 1: walking in abundance, and you're trying your best to be
Speaker 1: available to the people that you care about. I care
Speaker 1: about all of black people. That's why I care about you.
Speaker 1: That's why you have to be investigated by the BBI,
Speaker 1: and we have to make sure.
Speaker 2: I don't even understand the point of the investigation, but okay.
Speaker 1: The point of the investigation for you, the point of
Speaker 1: So what we do with the Biracial Bureau of Investigation
Speaker 1: is we make sure that we we identify the problematic
Speaker 1: biracials that exist amongst us.
Speaker 2: What do you mean the problematic? You mean the ones
Speaker 2: that don't claim they're black. I knew that's what it was.
Speaker 2: I knew I'm not one of those. I pass the test.
Speaker 2: Me acknowledging my nationality does not negate whether I'm black,
Speaker 2: whether I'm not acknowledging I'm black.
Speaker 1: I'll say right there, I'll say, right now, your prospects
Speaker 1: are good.
Speaker 2: My prospects are hella good.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to go deep.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have after you read, after you reborn a crime.
Speaker 2: We could we could talk, but we're not going to.
Speaker 1: I'll read Trevor's book. I'll actually add his book to
Speaker 1: it is the curriculum to be behind.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite books. Ryan, it's one of your
Speaker 2: favorite books.
Speaker 1: Ryan, you fuck with that? Ryan? You biracial?
Speaker 2: You are what?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: What are?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 1: Vietnamese? Oh?
Speaker 3: Soo?
Speaker 1: One Vietnamese parent, one white parent. Okay, that counts.
Speaker 2: But I mean, yeah, I don't know that by racial.
Speaker 2: I was like, wait, you got blacking him?
Speaker 1: Hold up?
Speaker 2: You do that kind of brothers the second he said
Speaker 2: biracial ship. But baby, you don't know, you never know.
Speaker 2: But but no, you should. You should check out the
Speaker 2: Trevor Noah book. I promise you it's a great read.
Speaker 2: You'll you'll probably end your BBI commission after that.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2: I know what you mean though, because I've met people
Speaker 2: that are like you know, they won't exactly acknowledge the
Speaker 2: black if they're half. But I acknowledge it, but I
Speaker 2: also acknowledged the others.
Speaker 1: It's more of a bit than it is anything else.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna have a lot.
Speaker 2: Of fun with it, have fun with it. Is there
Speaker 2: any way people could Keep up with you now, mister
Speaker 2: success Story.
Speaker 1: Still Grinding Hire Learning Podcasts on The Ringer Podcast Network
Speaker 1: with My Fantastic co host Rachel Lindsay. Fantastic co host
Speaker 1: Rachel Lindsay The Midnight Boys podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network,
Speaker 1: The ring Verse. Uh you see me on CNN. The
Speaker 1: movie company is doing well. Life is moving in a
Speaker 1: positive direction. I'm not where I want to go by
Speaker 1: my moay.
Speaker 2: I do want to touch on the Academy Award winning,
Speaker 2: like can we backtrack to that? That was before you
Speaker 2: were That was after you're fired, So.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been able to do it if I'd
Speaker 1: still been at Team Z.
Speaker 2: Okay, did you know you were going to work on
Speaker 2: that project when you were getting fired or did it
Speaker 2: just come out? It was it around the George Floyd
Speaker 2: or okay during the COVID during COVID Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, idea money execution. You never know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about with everything that happened during COVID,
Speaker 2: how these brands are now supporting black business? Like, how
Speaker 2: do you feel about it?
Speaker 1: What do you mean how they support it? I don't
Speaker 1: think they are.
Speaker 2: Well, they there was a period during the whole Black Lives.
Speaker 3: To me, it.
Speaker 2: Feels like the world had to come to an end.
Speaker 2: Like literally, sports had to end, The whole world had
Speaker 2: to stop for everyone to say, what is happening to
Speaker 2: blacks is really bad? It literally took If I think
Speaker 2: if sports was running at the same time, it'd be
Speaker 2: like any other year. But what I did notice, like
Speaker 2: there was a lot of like I know, a lot
Speaker 2: of brands that got distribution because they were black owned,
Speaker 2: or if you had a black in the title of
Speaker 2: any thing that you were doing around that time, you
Speaker 2: were getting distribution. You were getting sales from white you know,
Speaker 2: white ran companies.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Ah, So it's interesting there was an opportunity there
Speaker 1: that was missed. It was missed for merriad reasons. America's
Speaker 1: inability to reconcile its relationship with black Americans will be
Speaker 1: the thing that destroys America because if you cannot reconcile.
Speaker 1: In reconciling America's relationship historically and contemporarily with black people,
Speaker 1: you actually address many different American problems. You address American inequity,
Speaker 1: you address capitalism, you address you address so many of
Speaker 1: the different problems that exist for Americans across the lower
Speaker 1: class spectrum, right, But you can't really do it because
Speaker 1: Number One, there is a way to things are supposed
Speaker 1: to go in the country, and there's a fixed middle
Speaker 1: to lower class in the country, and the threat of
Speaker 1: those people becoming anything other than that threatens the way
Speaker 1: things are supposed to go. With black people specifically, It's
Speaker 1: this simple, and I know this sounds very unintellectual. America
Speaker 1: just don't want niggas to have shit. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: and so and here's the example to that. Real quick.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go on and on like I
Speaker 1: do everything that America has told Black people to do
Speaker 1: to get a hit in America, black people have done.
Speaker 1: Black people bought land. We own more land in nineteen
Speaker 1: oh five than we own now. Bought land top four
Speaker 1: white owners white land owners, and all of America own
Speaker 1: more land than all of Black America combined. We owned land.
Speaker 1: They took the land. They took the land through terrorism,
Speaker 1: they took the land through contract buyd We started thriving
Speaker 1: communities everywhere. They just said, no, we try to buy houses.
Speaker 1: They said no, we tried whatever we did, they just
Speaker 1: colluded to take it away. It's like you know, people
Speaker 1: talk about Greenwood, I know, you know, Tulsa is the
Speaker 1: one that sticks out in people's minds. What destroyed Tulsa
Speaker 1: was not the riot. It's not what destroyed Tulsa. Tulsa
Speaker 1: was known as Black Wall Street after the riot. They rebuilt.
Speaker 1: They had enough money to do that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: What destroyed Tulsa urban renewal. Urban renewal, which was a
Speaker 1: plan to take areas of inner city America, places that
Speaker 1: were deemed inner city or low low income, and like
Speaker 1: run fucking freeways through them. Tulsa got fucked over because
Speaker 1: they ran a fucking freeway through it. The people. They
Speaker 1: couldn't take the people's land any other way. So they
Speaker 1: use urban renewal, imminent domain, all different types of things
Speaker 1: like that to dispossess these people of what they had built.
Speaker 1: And they have their communities right, and so all of
Speaker 1: that stuff is to say that racism and the idea
Speaker 1: that black people are supposed to be lesser than is
Speaker 1: so deeply entrenched in the American psyche that if it's
Speaker 1: not dealt with, and if it's not, if we don't
Speaker 1: come to terms with it, then America can't exist in
Speaker 1: any real functional way. And it's only so long, right.
Speaker 1: We think that it can. We think that it could
Speaker 1: just be like this forever. It can't because you start
Speaker 1: turning the blond eyed to the middle class, then you
Speaker 1: erode your ability to be a stable community, right you.
Speaker 1: Income inequality a stable society. Income inequality goes crazy. All
Speaker 1: those things happen because they're huge chunks of the American
Speaker 1: electorate that people just are okay with saying they don't matter.
Speaker 1: George Floyd gets killed in front of everybody, and then
Speaker 1: people go, okay, well, maybe we should do more for
Speaker 1: black people. Did they let us tell them the way
Speaker 1: they should do more? Right, They donated to three or
Speaker 1: four places, made those places rich, and then heaped the
Speaker 1: entire reputation on Black America on what those people did
Speaker 1: with the money. So, like what I'm saying is right now.
Speaker 1: It's people would answer to these questions, but they would
Speaker 1: have to be the questions that would have to be
Speaker 1: asked seriously, and they never will. Now, I want you
Speaker 1: to have nothing brought you over here as a slave
Speaker 1: in order to make it make sense to them and
Speaker 1: to trick themselves into believing they have to trick themselves
Speaker 1: into believing you were subhuman and after three generations they
Speaker 1: really believe it. Yes, right. I mean when you're first
Speaker 1: kidnapping someone and you see a mother being separated from
Speaker 1: a child, you might feel something inside you that says
Speaker 1: that's wrong. But see about like one hundred years after that,
Speaker 1: that's gone because you have now like purposefully endeavored into
Speaker 1: a psychosis that makes you, that makes the way this
Speaker 1: country runs. Do you have to like approach that as
Speaker 1: if it's true? And that's where we are, and so
Speaker 1: the only thing for us to do is to disassociate
Speaker 1: with that and do what eighty five South and so
Speaker 1: many other people are doing here, which is collectivize. Do
Speaker 1: it for yourself, like depend on yourself and have solidarity
Speaker 1: with yourself. See grilled cheese.
Speaker 2: Too, grilled cheese too. Look at that grilled cheese.
Speaker 1: You like it.
Speaker 2: It's good. It's good you too, grilled cheese. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for your time. We appreciate it. And I'll
Speaker 2: catch up with you. And we're in La.
Speaker 1: Yeah, catch up. We'll have your We have an IR
Speaker 1: on you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna see what your your reading history
Speaker 2: is looking like. Hey, what up? Jay suck? All right, it's.
Speaker 3: Secret ingredient.
Speaker 2: Yo, Picture this a parallel dimension where Van Laythan's born
Speaker 2: without his secret sauce, that raw, unfiltered candor. In this
Speaker 2: twisted reality, that legendary Larry Flint joke never lands, Harvey's
Speaker 2: approval never earned, TMZ producer status never achieved. And when
Speaker 2: Kanye's spit in nonsense in the newsroom, insulting everybody in
Speaker 2: their mama, ain't nobody stepping up to check him. But
Speaker 2: in our world, Van Layton's keeping it one thousand. He's
Speaker 2: got that freedom to speak his mind. And it's not
Speaker 2: just opening doors for him, it's straight up kicking them
Speaker 2: off their hinges. Van Laythan teaches us that when candor
Speaker 2: is your secret ingredient, life can hand you all the
Speaker 2: lemons it wants, you just throw them lemons right back
Speaker 2: and whip up a banging ass grilled cheese sandwich. I'm
Speaker 2: calling wit, and you've been listening to Eating While Broke.
Speaker 2: Peace out for more Eating While Broke from iHeartRadio and
Speaker 2: The Black Effect, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.